


the unwronged

by mornen



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: AU, Abuse, Angst, Angst and Humor, Blood and Gore, Canon Incest, Codependency, Dark, Dark Magic, Dark fic, Depression, Dimension Travel, Disreality, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Grief/Mourning, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Incest, Intrusive Thoughts, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Modern Era, Multi, Necromancy, Nightmares, Novel, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, PTSD, Physical Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Power Hunger, Queerplatonic Relationships, Rape/Non-con Elements, Recovery, Science Fiction, Self-Harm, Serious Injuries, Sharing a Bed, Torture, Trauma, Undecided Relationship(s), Unreliable Narrator, Violence, broken trust, mental trauma, messed up relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:34:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 21
Words: 50,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22533319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mornen/pseuds/mornen
Summary: Sauron is starting a war in another world, but he is going to have to deal with some of his bitterest enemies come back from the dead.Dark AU, Modern AU, Dimension Travel AUp.s. I'm trying to make this readable if you haven't read the silmarillion or know much about it so please let me know if I need to clarify anything
Relationships: Aragorn | Estel/Arwen Undómiel, Celebrimbor | Telperinquar/Sauron | Mairon, Frodo Baggins/Sam Gamgee, Frodo Baggins/Sauron | Mairon
Comments: 77
Kudos: 71





	1. something more than this/sailing

_first age, year 2_

Mairon watches the water pool on the floor. He holds the vase, tipped. He wants something more than this. He doesn’t know what. The rest of the water falls out, and it spreads over the floor and against his bare feet.

He sets the vase on the table and fills it with fresh water. He places white roses in it. They have many petals. They are clean.

Mairon sits on the floor beside the pool of water and the spent daisies and goldenrod. He holds the flowers in his hands. They are weak and brown-spotted. He can taste their decay with his fingers.

Outside the world is dark, for Melkor doesn’t want the sun or the moon or the stars. Mairon lays the flowers down. His hair falls in golden fire over his face. He smiles, and his lip splits, vertical, across the bottom. He touches the blood and it comes off on his finger, and he spreads it over his bare thigh. He stretches, and his back cracks. He is spilling out of this body.

He was given much, and he wants more. He has taken much, and still he wants more. He rests his hand against his face. He studies his reflection in the mirrors along the wall. He is golden.

He puts a finger to his throat, and his back opens. The skin peels back. There are wings beneath his skin. Curled and damp, they rest against his muscle. He unfurls them, and they rise from his body, filling the room.  
Mairon throws himself out the window.

* * *

  
_third age, year 3002_

Frodo picks daises from the fields where he walks alone. The grass is green, but it is showing signs of fading. The sun is high. It is a hot summer.

Some of the daises are stubborn. The stems refuse to break, and he pulls, and they break against his hand, leaving green marks on his brown skin. Some come up from the ground with their roots, and he twists their stems to break them after and drops the roots down. He finds goldenrod and mixes it with the daisies.

He climbs a hill and stands and watches the blue sky and the people moving. He has a vase at home. He will bring the flowers there and put them in water and they will be there when he wakes alone in the mornings. He heads back.

* * *

_third age, year 3018_  
  
Elrond wakes in the night, and the stars are wrong. The Star of Eärendil is too close and too bright. Elrond puts his hand to his mouth. He'd dreamt this. He'd dreamt this every night for the past month, and a voice deeper than the world had said, 'He brings word.'

Elrond slips on the floor as he runs to Arwen. She is with her brothers and Estel. Elrond sinks onto her bed and takes Elladan’s hand. They all stare at the stars.

‘I was told this might happen,’ he says.

‘Is he coming?’ Elrohir asks.

‘He has news,’ Elrond answers.

A veil passes over the Star. Eärendil has covered the gem, but it is still bright. Everyone will notice. Elrond does not sleep again that night. He waits, and the sun rises.  
  
  
Dawn breaks pale. Frodo watches from his window. The Ring burns against his skin. Something has changed. Frodo goes out and wanders through the building, down stairs and through corridors.

Frodo finds Gandalf and Elrond. They are sitting together, whispering. He goes to them.

‘Did you see it?’ Gandalf asks.

‘The Star,’ Frodo says.

Elrond nods.

‘It's my father. He comes with news.' He looks at Gandalf, and Gandalf studies Frodo. 

'Sit,' Gandalf says.

Frodo sits beside them.

Elrond worries his lip. 'Gandalf.' There is a fear in his whisper, and Frodo starts. He's never imagined Elrond afraid of anything.

‘Mm.’ Gandalf rubs Elrond's arm and gets up to look out the window.

'I don't even know what to say to him,’ Elrond says.

‘You should eat,’ Gandalf says from the window.

'I can't,’ says Elrond. ‘I'm sick to my stomach.' He plays with the knots in his hair. His fingers tremble. ‘He’s not allowed to set foot on the ground,' he says, more to himself than to anyone.

‘How are you going to talk to him?’ Frodo asks. ‘If he can’t set foot on the ground?’

‘I will have to go to his ship.'

‘His floating ship?’

'Yes, on the Vingilótë.’

'How come he hasn't done that before?’ Frodo says without thinking. Everything feels like a dream, and like any question he asks will have no consequence. Elrond hasn't seen his father since he was four, if he has read the histories right, or if they were recorded correctly.

Elrond drops the braid he's been chewing on. 'It’s dangerous, with the Silmaril. The Valar have now sent him. He has important information.’

It's such a long time to not see someone. Elrond's fingers continue to tremble. Frodo feels out of place, but it is still enough like a dream that he doesn't have to worry.

'Are you worried he's going to kidnap you?' he asks, slowly, the thought occurring to him and being spoken at the same time.

Elrond laughs once. 'No.'

Gandalf turns. 'He's coming.'

A shadow passes over the window, and the outline of sails moves over the dark floor. Elrond stands. Frodo stands with him and looks out the window at a ship hanging, gleaming and glittering, in the air.

Elrond takes Gandalf’s hand.

‘I’m scared,' he says.

'Why are you scared? That's your father.'

'I don't know him,' Elrond says. 'I can't remember... What if he has been watching me? Judging me?'

'Then tell him it's his fault because he didn't stick around to raise you.’ Gandalf says it like a joke, but it makes the air feel stale. 'You'll be fine.'

They go out onto the grass. It is cold, and everyone is coming out to look. Frodo shivers in the cool autumn morning. The dew on the grass is not yet frost.

Eärendil looks down from his ship. His hair is wheat-coloured and flowing. He has eyes greener than a forest. He has a Silmaril on his forehead.

He has a Silmaril on his forehead.

Even veiled, its brilliance is clear. Suddenly all the tales make sense. There is a reason people would kill and die for those stones. Frodo breathes out. The cold seems to have evaporated.

Elrond bows.

Eärendil leans out over the railing of the ship and surveys them.

'This is the closest I've been to the ground in a long time.’ His voice is clear, and it feels like sunlight on a cool morning.

Elrond smiles weakly. 'Eärendil, it is an honour.'

'Elrond,' Eärendil says, his voice soft around the edges.

'Father,' Elrond answers.

'Can you bring me some flowers up here?' Eärendil asks. 'I’ve missed them. The planets are too cold or too hot, and the moon is rock and dust. Valinor's flowers aren't as real as the ones from my youth that I remember. They never die. I always remember that flowers die. I would like to smell their fragrance, and I see you have kept alive your gardens even this far into autumn.’

‘Yes,’ Elrond says, and he doesn’t move.

Eärendil drops down a golden rope with a loop at the end. It is such a golden coil in the air, like a dragon flying.

'What kind of flowers?' Elrond asks. He reaches his hand behind him and touches Arwen’s hand.

'Any kind,' Eärendil says. 'Those lilacs. Or daisies! I miss daisies.'

'Yes,' Elrond says. He still does not move. Arwen nods. She doesn’t move either. The Vingilótë is floating. Everyone stares. The shadow is strange on their faces. The ship catches the light of the sunrise.

'This is my daughter,' Elrond says. 'Arwen.'

'Arwen.' Eärendil bows his head. ‘It is good to see you.’

‘And my sons,’ Elrond says. ‘Elladan and Elrohir.’ He touches them as he speaks, to indicate. ‘And Estel, Aragorn. My foster son, of my brother's family.'

Eärendil bows his head to him. The Silmaril gleams bright beneath the veil over it. Elrond can see no one else with him. This is not how he expected to see his father again.

Elrond looks at the rope. He thinks it looks like a hanging rope, but he cannot say that. He doesn’t know if he can hold on all the way up the ship. He might fall. Eärendil is different than he’d remembered (dreamt). He steps on the loop and wraps the rope three times about his wrist.

Eärendil pulls him up.

Elrond swings in the air on the bottom of the rope. He imagines swinging. He had a swing, growing up. Maglor had made Elros and him a swing, wherever they went, after he’d trusted that they wouldn’t hang themselves.

Eärendil’s hand grabs his wrist, and Elrond doesn’t remember if his skin used to feel like that. His hand is calloused and scarred. Elrond is leaning against the side of the ship, feet pointing down to the earth, while Eärendil hugs him.

‘My son,’ Eärendil says. ‘My child.’

Elrond starts. He’s still on the wrong side of the railing. Eärendil pulls him over, not letting go. He holds Elrond tightly.

‘My son, I am so proud of you.’ Eärendil presses Elrond’s face to his chest and strokes his hair and then pulls back to look at him and runs his hand over his face. He is tall. ‘I am so proud,' he says. He strokes Elrond's face again. 'You’re so real.’

Elrond stares. He does not feel real. He does not think this is really happening. He is going to wake in his bed and Eärendil will be far away, glittering on the horizon.

'Oh, my child.' Eärendil strokes his hair and kisses his faint.

Elrond faints.

Eärendil doesn’t let him fall to the deck. He keeps him tight in his arms and moves him out of sight of the ground to spare him the stares. He sinks onto the deck with Elrond in his arms and holds him, head tilted back, until he revives.

Elrond slowly comes to.

‘I’m sorry.' 

‘My baby.’ Eärendil holds his face gently. Above them, the sails billow in the wind. They are so alone. 

‘I don’t know why I did that,’ Elrond mumbles.

'Shock.'

'Oh, yes. I suppose.’ Elrond looks down at the deck. ‘It’s a beautiful ship,’ he says softly.

Eärendil doesn’t let go of him. He keeps him on his lap in his arms.

'You are amazing.'

'Why?' Elrond says.

'Everything you've done. Everyone you've helped. Your beautiful valley. You are the greatest healer.' He cradles Elrond in his arms. 'My son.'

Elrond wonders if he is proud because he views Elrond as an accomplishment. He does not ask. His head is spinning.

Eärendil traces his features. 'You look like.…'

'I don't want to cry,' Elrond says. 'Please.'

'All right.' Eärendil lets go of him.

Elrond straightens up. He tucks his hair firmly behind his ears and looks down for Arwen. She stands on the ground with her arms full of flowers.

Eärendil drops the rope and it unspools in the sky. Arwen steps onto the rope and wraps it around her body. Eärendil pulls her up and over onto the deck. He takes the flowers she hands over.

‘Thank you,’ he says and buries his face in the blossoms.

Arwen smiles. 'Grandfather. I have dreamt about meeting you someday; I wasn't sure it would actually happen.'

Eärendil holds his arm out to her, and they embrace.

'Granddaughter.'

Arwen kisses Eärendil's cheek. 'Your ship is lovely!'

'Thank you. I wish I could go down.’

Elrond looks at the ground. It does look inviting. It's warmer, realer.

‘You came all this way,’ he says softly.

Eärendil shrugs. 'I wish I could help you more.’

'It's fine.’

'No, it isn't, but we won't waste time arguing.' Eärendil kisses Elrond. ‘I wish I could take all your pain.'

'You don't.'

'I really do.'

'No, you don't,’ Elrond says. ‘You never wanted to be tied to anything.' He does not know why he says it. It isn't true. It can't be. If it were, could he have forsaken everything he loved in a hopeless plead for mercy. But then again, he did not have to be tied to anything to die.

Eärendil touches his cheek. ‘I’ll bring up your sons.’

Eärendil pulls them up, embracing Elrohir and then Elladan as he pulls them to the safety of the deck. Elrond does not know if Estel will come. He stands beside the golden rope, but he does not take hold of it. Elrond watches him, but he does not call his name. It may be that the light is too bright for him.

Elrohir goes to stand near his father. 'Eärendil is not what I expected,' he says in Elrond's mind. 'He seems younger than me, somehow. He looks like a buttercup, with his golden hair and green eyes.'

But Elrohir hugs him again because he is his grandfather, and he may never see him again.

‘Twins,’ Eärendil says, and he shakes his head, smiling sadly. He holds them both. Still Estel does not step onto the loop of the rope.

Elrond sinks down to his knees on the deck. He can’t stand. He’s going to cry. He’s really going to cry. And it won't be a cry, quick and over, with relief after. It will be long and horrible, and he won't be able to think at all. He cannot breakdown now.

Arwen touches Elrond’s shoulder. 'Ada?'

Elrond nods slightly.

'Ada, are you all right?'

Elrond nods again. He is adding and dividing and multiplying in his head. 'Mm.'

Arwen rubs his shoulder. 'Love you, Ada.'

Elrond doesn’t respond. He studies the deck. He adds forty-seven to six thousand and thirty-three. He divides it by zero.

'I guess he's in shock,' Arwen says.

'I'm not in shock,' Elrond answers. He is in shock.

Arwen holds his hand. ‘I’m right here.’

Elrond lifts his hand slightly towards Eärendil. Eärendil pulls him to his feet. Elrond sways and then collapses into his arms. Eärendil holds him.

‘My poor child.’

Elrond feels too heavy to even lift his head. He cries, and Eärendil rocks him.

'Oh, my poor child.'

Elrond sobs. He can't. He can't. He's going to lose his mind. He can't.

'My poor, poor child.' Eärendil kisses his forehead. The comfort is too much. It will break him. Love for a moment, snatched away again. He shoves away from his father.

‘You left!’ he cries. ‘You left us… You left, and you never came back.’

‘I know,’ Eärendil says.

‘You’re not my father,’ Elrond says. ‘That is Maglor.’

Eärendil doesn’t let go of him, even though Elrond presses at his chest, pressing away from him.

‘All right,’ he says.

'But he left too,' Elrond says softly. ‘I wish I could see my mother, but she left. She...’ He draws his breath in fast through his teeth. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll calm down. You have information.’

Eärendil touches Elrond's cheek.

‘Yes. Information.’ He looks away.

'Well, tell me,' Elrond says. He’s straightened up now; he holds himself together. ‘It’s cold up here.’

'Yes,' Eärendil says. 'Well. It isn't good news.'

‘I didn’t except it to be,’ Elrond replies. ‘What is it?’

Eärendil shrugs. 'Well, there's no easy way to say this.' He sticks his hand in the pockets of his loose, white trousers. ‘You have six Maiar coming to join Sauron. They’re already on the ground. I saw them crossing the sea. They weren’t stopped.’

‘What?’ Elrond says. This feels like a dream again. The wind blows the veil on the Silmaril up, and for a moment, he is blinded by the light before the veil falls down again, covering half of his father's face, throwing thin shadows.

‘I told you it was bad news.’

'What are the Valar going to do?' Elrond asks.

'Ah. Nothing.’ Eärendil shrugs. ‘I mean, they didn’t stop them.’

Elrond nods.

'They tried,’ Eärendil said. ‘A bit. But it was too late, and they are reluctant to interfere, given the force they would have to use would...’

'I see,’ Elrond says. ‘Are they powerful Maiar?’

'Mm. Not as powerful as, say, Curunír. But there are six of them.'

Elrond looks down at Gandalf. Gandalf looks small from the ship. Estel is staring up, but he still hasn't stepped onto the rope.

‘What do we do? What would the Valar think of us surrendering?’

Eärendil licks his lip.

'Father?'

Eärendil shrugs. 'They'd probably say you didn't try hard enough. Because they're like that.'

Elrond bites his lip. 'But they're not going to send help.'

'No. Because they're like that.'

They stand in silence. There is nothing to be done. They are already outmatched. The world will fall. Elrond leans against his father. He feels like he would fall off the ship. They have fought so hard, so long. Eärendil gave away everything he loved to save the world, and for that he was punished. Elrond has given himself again and again to the point of breaking, and then fitting himself together after. He is dizzy. He will fall off the ship. His children do not have answers. His father does not have an answer. He just brings a warning, and then he must go back to the paths that he wanders, bringing light to the world, the punishment, the reward, of being a saviour. There is nothing to be done. There is no answer. He can read it in Eärendil's green eyes. He looks so young still, despite the scars covered by gold leaf and the soft brush of diamond dust over his burn skin. 

'All right,’ Elrond says. ‘The Ring is going to Galadriel, or Gandalf. That is what's going to happen.' One of them will take the Ring, and they will become a lord of the world until another time when there is greater strength to throw them down. There is no other answer he can see. They will all die now for the hope of a tomorrow. 

Arwen frowns. She looks at Elladan, but he just shakes his head. They all stand in silence.

‘Thank you,’ Elrond says. ‘For the warning.’

Eärendil nods.

'Is Elwing not allowed to visit?' Arwen asks softly. 'This isn’t related to the information or to the preparations for war, but I was hoping to meet my grandmother.'

'The Valar had her stay with them,' Eärendil says. 'Maybe so I'd return.' His smile is weak.

Elrond swallows.

Arwen nods slowly. 'I see.'

Eärendil shrugs. 'I'm not supposed to stay. Not... not much longer than this.'

Elrond looks at Eärendil’s hands. They look like his own, but he has covered them with gold or glitter to hide the scars that wrap his skin.

'I'm sorry,' Eärendil says. 'I wish I could have given you more.'

‘It’s fine.’ Elrond doesn’t look up. 'Do you have to leave right away?'

Eärendil shrugs. ‘I guess not right away.’

Elrond nods. He’s forgotten anything he would have liked to ask. He had so many things to ask, but now his mind is blank except for the green of his father's eyes and the sound of the sails in the wind.

‘Elrond,’ Eärendil says. ‘Your mother would like a lock of your hair.’

‘Of course,’ Elrond says numbly.

Eärendil takes a knife from his belt. He takes a braid from Elrond’s hair and cuts it quickly.

Elrond would have cut his hair from underneath. He doesn’t protest. It doesn’t matter.

Elladan pushes a fistful of daisies into Eärendil’s arms. ‘Here.’

‘Thank you.’ Eärendil puts them with the rest of the flowers. He draws Elladan into his arms again. ‘You’re kind.’ He kisses him.

‘Mother is well?’ Elrond asks.

‘Very well.’

‘And have you met Celebrían? Is she well?’ It feels like all the colours of the world are too bright, but still everything is muted, and he will always remember everything as silver, but for Eärendil's hair and eyes. ‘Was she healed?’

‘She has healed much. Sometimes she lives with your mother.’

‘Thank you,’ Elrond whispers.

Eärendil looks down.

‘I should go. I was just supposed to warn you. I can't stay. I'm sorry. I wish…'

'Don't wish,' Elrond says. 'It won't give you more.'

Eärendil sighs. ‘Let me hold you. One last time.’

Elrond bows his head and lets him hold him. He smells Eärendil’s hair, and it smells of cold and dust. Maybe that is what the heavens smell like.

Eärendil hugs him tightly and kisses him. ‘My child.’

Elrond closes his eyes. Eärendil smells his skin, his hair.

'The Valar are unfair,' Elrond says.

'They are.'

'Are they cruel to you?'

'No,’ Eärendil answers. ‘Not more than this.'

Elrond stares into his eyes. Eärendil lifts his hand and kisses the palm.

'I will always miss you,’ Eärendil whispers. 'I watch you. You are braver than I am. By far.'

'That doesn't comfort me.' Elrond kisses Eärendil. ‘I do love you.’

‘That comforts me.’ Eärendil kisses his forehead.

Eärendil says good-bye to his grandchildren, and then they are lowered one by one, over the side of the ship and then down until their feet are on the earth again.

Elrond waits for a moment after his last child is safely down. He studies Eärendil’s face, memorising it.

Eärendil holds his face. ‘We’ll meet again.’ He kisses him one last time before lowering him down through the air.

The air feels colder on the ground, somehow. Elrond stands near Gandalf.

‘You should talk to him,’ Elrond says, in his mind. ‘He brought bad news, but you might know the Maiar.’

'That doesn’t sound good,’ Gandalf answers.

'Six are coming to join Sauron.'

'Dear God.'

Gandalf is pulled onto the ship. Now Aragorn goes with him. They talk to Eärendil for a long time. Elrond watches the ship. He touches the spot where his hair is cut. The edges are jagged against his fingers.

Arwen squeezes his hand. 'I'm sorry, Ada.'

'It's fine,’ he answers.

They wait.

Gandalf comes down again, but Elrond does not know how much time has passed.

‘I don’t understand,’ Gandalf says, in his mind. ‘I don’t know how to stop this.’

Elrond nods. He doesn’t either. He smooths out his dress.

They stand and watch as Eärendil leaves. Elrond lifts his hand to his lips and blows a gentle kiss. Eärendil catches it, and Vingilótë slips out of the valley and away again.


	2. immaculate

Gandalf drags Frodo inside, hand on his shoulder. Elrond follows them, swift and silent. Gandalf’s explanation, behind locked doors, is perfunctory. Evil wizards. Road blocked. No hope in their plan.

'We're all going to die,' Frodo says.

Gandalf doesn’t agree or disagree.

Frodo looks to Elrond, but Elrond stands, silent still, hand to his head, watching Gandalf.

‘We’re going to give the Ring to Galadriel,’ Gandalf says, his voice softening at the look of terror in Frodo’s wide brown eyes.

Elrond closes his eyes. He isn’t sure how much of him and Gandalf will remain. He twists his hand through his hair until the pull bites at his scalp. Frodo’s asking Gandalf who Galadriel is and where she is and what this all means. Elrond barely listens.

‘Elrond,’ Gandalf says, finally, and Elrond stirs. ‘Shall I tell her, or should you?’

'I'll tell her.’

Elrond sinks down to the wooden floor. He reaches out for Galadriel with his mind. She’s there, and she’s warm, and autumn has not reached any part of Lórien.

‘Elrond,’ she says, voice filling him. The warmth of it makes Elrond shudder and lean down closer to the floor like he will rest there. He sees sunlight and morning and the softness of her hair falling across their vision. ‘Why did Eärendil come?’ she asks. ‘What news does he bring us?

‘I have seen him come many times, and never did he bring good tidings.’

‘It is not good,’ Elrond answers, and their hand skims across their vision, flickering over water and then blood. ‘There are six Maiar who have come now to help Sauron.’

‘I saw it,’ she says, and their feet slip on rocks and dust and step on corpses. ‘Elrond,’ she says, ‘you’re slipping.’

Elrond focuses on the floor, and their hair tumbles black over their eyes.

‘I hoped that it was untrue,’ she says, voice like a falling mountain. ‘But I am seldom granted what I desire. Will we fight them?’

‘We must,’ Elrond answers.

‘Too late now to lay down and die.’

Their world spins. There’s a flash of fire brighter than lightning two feet away. It is silent. The world is patterned green and blue and white. It is circled with smoke. A dragon lands on the moon.

‘You’re slipping,’ he whispers.

Their world is one flower, golden in the grass, framed by silver-gold hair, lit by the sun.

‘You need to take the Ring,’ he says. ‘You’re the one who can fight him.’

Their world is blue and silver. It is Celebrían in moonlight.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘Come to us.’

Elrond is draped over himself, face on the floor. Frodo watches. Gandalf’s hand rests on his shoulder.

‘What is he doing?’ Frodo asks.

'He’s telling Galadriel,' Gandalf says. ‘Through their minds.’

Frodo frowns. ‘Over that distance? That's possible?'

'For us.'

Frodo sticks his hands in his pockets. He’s already gotten a glimpse into reading minds, but he isn’t going to tell Gandalf.

'He might pass out,' Gandalf says.

'He's beautiful,' Frodo says. He doesn’t mean to say it.

Elrond shifts, and he sits up. He brushes his hair off his face and neck. His eyes flutter open. ‘She will come.’

He reaches for Gandalf, and Gandalf pulls him to his feet. Elrond leans against him.

'She already saw it,’ Elrond whispers. ‘She sees everything in that mirror.'

‘Will it be hard,’ Gandalf asks Frodo, ‘for you to give It up?’

Frodo feels his stomach twist.

‘No.’

Gandalf studies him.

‘I’d get to go home then?’ Frodo says.

The room is hot and dark, full of books and carved wood and maps and things Frodo has no name for. It doesn’t feel like the rest of Rivendell. Frodo wants to leave it as fast as he can.

Gandalf nods.

‘I’m glad to go home,’ Frodo says. ‘I’ll give It up. I can’t fight Sauron.’

‘You can’t tell anyone about this,’ Gandalf says.

‘I know.’

‘They’ll find out soon enough.’

Frodo shifts. It’s getting hard to breathe. He doesn’t like how the curtains are drawn. How the door is locked. He wants to be outside again.

‘You can tell Bilbo,’ Elrond says, suddenly. ‘That you aren’t going to Mordor. He’d like to know.’

‘Can I leave?’

Sweat trickles down Frodo’s back.

‘Yes,’ Gandalf says.

Frodo flees at once, down the hall, up the stairs. The place is full of rumours. How can anyone not be talking?

Frodo finds Bilbo sitting quiet and apart, Sam and his cousins with him. Merry jumps up.

‘We didn’t know where you went! Gandalf pulled you off so fast!’

‘He had news. Good news, for us.’ Frodo sinks down near Bilbo, trying to smile past the sickness in his stomach. ‘Dearest Bilbo, it looks like we won’t have to go on that quest after all.’

Bilbo smiles at him. ‘That’s wonderful.’

'Yes.’ Frodo’s head spins for an explanation. ‘Gandalf says since the Elves started all this, it's their business to finish up. So I'll be able to stay here with you. What do you think of that?'

Sam peers at Frodo.

'Are you joking, Mr. Frodo?’ Sam asks. ‘Because it's not much to laugh about.'

'I'm not joking. I'm staying here for now, and then we can go home. There isn't anything more for me to do.'

Frodo swallows hard.

Sam nods. 'Well, good. I'm glad. But who's going to do the deed then?'

'Oh,' Frodo says. He waves his hands. 'The Elves. They're strong and enduring and cunning and wise and all that. They'll figure something out.'

'Is this because of that ship?'

'Yes! A star came down, and says I wasn't the one to do it. And you can't rightly argue with a star now can you?'

‘I guess not.'

‘Oh, wonderful!’ Pippin shouts. ‘The Star saved us!’

‘Shh. We’re not saved yet.’ Frodo pats Pippin’s arm. ‘But we don’t have to do the saving, and we can go home soon.’

‘Good enough for me,’ Pippin says.

Merry searches Frodo’s face. Frodo touches his shoulder.

‘We’ll go home.’

It’s the only thing he has to say.

* * *

Gandalf stands, Elrond leaning fully on him. Frodo’s left the door open. Gandalf closes it. He sits Elrond on a chair. He turns a globe with one finger.

‘She loves you,’ Elrond says. ‘She loves you like… Like she could just sit there for centuries holding your hand and that would be enough.'

Gandalf takes a deep breath. ‘Yes.’

'You feel that about her?'

'Yes.'

'You are going to lose her.'

'I know.'

Elrond closes his eyes. He runs his fingers over his cut hair. He keeps going back to it. What is that thing they say? About searching your mouth for a missing tooth? He doesn’t remember the line, but it feels like that. He can’t stop touching it.

‘My mother wanted a lock of my hair,’ Elrond says. ‘I wish she’d sent me hers.’

‘I can grow it out for you,’ Gandalf says.

‘No, I like it.’ Elrond shakes his head. ‘Maybe I’m being sentimental; it’s the only thing he gave me.’

‘Well, besides bad news,’ Gandalf says.

Elrond’s laugh is half a gasp. ‘Besides that.’

‘Elrond.’ Gandalf takes his hand. ‘I am truly glad I knew you.’

Elrond bows his head and kisses Gandalf’s hand.

* * *

Waiting is worse than anything, Frodo thinks. He slouches on a bench watching the pine forest as it sways in the wind. The deciduous trees are orange and red and gold, and they feel strange mixed with the flowers still in bloom that should have only bloomed in spring. He’s checked them. Wild roses in bloom next to the rose-hips. Apple blossoms left beside red apples. They’re starting to wilt now. The petals brown and curl towards each other. They will go home in winter, if they go home.

He wishes he were home, and this was all a dream. Some fantastic nightmare that he wakes from with a shudder but that soon slips away, leaving behind only a trace of fear. He wants to go out and make breakfast in his little kitchen and boil water for tea and sit at the table with Sam and read through his letters while Sam looks through a book.

In the winter, they wouldn’t do much. It would be quiet. Peaceful. Domestic.

Elrond sits beside him, and Frodo starts. He’s quiet. Coming out of nowhere.

‘You need to eat,’ Elrond says. He has a plate. ‘You’ve dropped too much weight for someone so small.’

Frodo’s lip twitches as he catches himself from frowning.

'Yes, I am scolding you like you are a little child.’ Elrond shakes his head and hands him the plate.

Frodo takes it. 'I would be offended, but you're ancient.'

Elrond looks out at the woods. 'I am. I'm old and tired. And even my father seems younger than me.'

Frodo nods slowly. He had only seen Eärendil from the ground, but it had seemed that way. He eats some of the chicken.

Elrond runs his fingers over his face. He tugs at his hair. He gets less composed with every day that passes. Frodo isn’t completely sure why, but he has guesses.

Elrond smiles at Frodo. 'Old age not an option, how do you want to die?' He sounds pleasant about it.

Frodo picks at the food. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I’d like to know it’s happening. As opposed to being killed instantly from behind or something.’ He looks up at Elrond. He is very tall. 'Any particular reason you're asking me how I'd like to die?'

‘No,’ Elrond says. ‘Just making conversation.’

Frodo spreads mashed potatoes on a roll.

‘And how would you like to die?’

'I'd like to be strangled. Or smothered.' Elrond doesn’t offer an explanation for that.

'I'd like to die saving someone,' Frodo says.

'That's what Glorfindel did,' Elrond says. ‘And he died by fire.’

Frodo shivers at the thought.

‘It’s very painful,’ Elrond muses. ‘It’s better if you pass out from the lack of air.’

'Did he?'

‘No.’

Frodo shudders. 'How is he alive now?'

‘He was reincarnated.’

‘Oh.’ Frodo knows what that is, but he’s never thought much about it. ‘Does that happen to everyone or just to Elves?’

‘I don’t know.’ Elrond rests his hand on Frodo’s arm. ‘Probably just Elves. Sometimes I think that mortals do too, but I don’t know.’

Frodo eats the food. He wants to ask questions, but he doesn’t know how welcome they would be. Anyway, Elrond is watching to make sure he eats, and his mouth is full.

‘Are you sad, Frodo?’

'About?'

‘Anything.’

'I'm scared,’ Frodo admits. ‘About the message. I don’t really know what to expect.’

Elrond thinks for some time. ‘I’m scared too. I might not be...’

'Might not be?'

‘My identity might disappear.’ Elrond rubs Frodo’s good shoulder. ‘So we’ll see. It’s going to be hard for you too probably: Giving It up.'

Frodo stares up at him. Elrond’s eyes are dark grey and pale grey, the two shades melted into each other. He has a fleck of gold in one eye. Frodo squints his eyes and tilts his head from side to side, but the fleck doesn’t disappear.

Elrond bends to kiss his forehead, and Frodo feels younger than he has in his entire life.

‘I’m sorry,’ Frodo whispers, for he is flooded with sorrow, and he doesn’t know how to stop it. ‘I’ll eat.'

‘Good.’

Elrond leaves him. The air is cool.

* * *

Frodo huddles close to Merry in the dark, not sleeping.

‘Merry?’

‘Mm?’

‘Are you awake?’

‘Mhm.’

'It might break my mind,’ Frodo says. ‘That's what they’re too afraid to tell me. Giving up the Ring. It might break my mind.’

Merry rolls over, but Frodo can’t see his face.

‘Bilbo gave it up,’ Merry says. ‘And he seems all right. Happier, even.’

'Yes,' Frodo murmurs. ‘Because he gave It up willingly.

'So give it up willingly,’ Merry says. ‘And then we can go home.'

'What if I can't?'

Merry sighs. 'Don't think like that. Think that you can. You'll be all right, Frodo. I won't permit otherwise.'

* * *

Arwen watches the Star of Eärendil as it passes through the sky, back on course. Her brothers have ridden out to meet Galadriel. They don’t have time. She’s been betting on enough time for years now, and the years are short, and falling away.

Estel comes behind her and puts his arms around her and rests his chin on top of her head. They don’t have time. Arwen rests her hands on his hands and she can see her nails bite his skin, but she needs to hold onto him this tightly.

She knows. He knows. They don’t speak of it.

The moonlight searches over the floor. Her bed is white and unmade. Her brother’s shirt lies over a chair, from when they were sitting, talking, mending. She hasn’t moved it.

Frost creeps along the edge of the window. It will bloom flowers by the morning.

‘You should leave,’ Estel says. ‘You. Your brothers. We won’t survive this.’

‘Don’t talk,’ she says. ‘I don’t want to hear it.’

She watches the frost creep. Her feet are cold. They should go to bed, but they don’t move.

He holds her tighter, and she feels her ribs compress in the embrace.

‘I won’t abandon my family,’ she says, and she hopes it’s firm enough that he won’t argue. She’s too tired to argue correctly. If they start, she’ll scream. Not words. Just the long horrible scream that’s wound up tight in her body clawing for a way out. A fight would solve it, yes, but that’s not how you handle your feelings.

He doesn’t argue.

‘I’m cold,’ she says, and they go to bed.

* * *

Galadriel arrives at nine in the morning with an accompaniment of her ladies.

‘I’m tired,’ she says when Mithrandir embraces her. ‘We won’t discuss details now.’

She pulls Elrond into her arms next and presses her lips to his ear. ‘My dear one. I am sorry.’ She presses her cheek to his and tries not to think about his parents, because it always makes her sad.

He kisses her and says, ‘Mother,’ softly.

She releases him and drags Arwen into her arms, crushing her against her body in front of everyone, and she doesn’t even care.

‘I need to rest,’ she says. ‘We came as quickly as we could.’

* * *

Arwen goes with her to rest and Galadriel bathes quickly and then wraps herself around Arwen in bed.

‘My darling,’ she says. ‘You met Eärendil. What did you think?’

Arwen leans into her.

'He was young,’ she says. ‘Captured so long in the sky, alone. It doesn’t age you… I thought it would age you.  
I think it might have hurt my father to see him, but I’m glad I met him. I wish Elwing could have come.’

Galadriel squeezes her hand.

'My little love,' she says. 'I don't think anything is going to be all right.'

Arwen pulls her closer, and Galadriel melts against her.

‘I love you so much, Undómiel. The most.'

Arwen holds her. She has never seen her this tired. Maybe after Celebrían was captured. No, she had been angry then. Angry at herself, at Elrond, at fate, at the gods. Now she was just tired.

'I thought I had given all this up,' Galadriel says softly. 'Now I know… I'll never go home.'

'I'm sorry.’

Galadriel cradles Arwen’s cheek.

'And you're going to end up hating me.'

'No I won't.'

'You can't promise that.'

'Yes, I can.’

Galadriel studies her. Big silver eyes, stubborn frown.

'You look like Lúthien.'

'Why does that matter?'

'It doesn't. It’s just sometimes for a moment I forget what century I'm in.'

Arwen rolls onto her back, away from Galadriel.

'Elwing wanted a lock of his hair.'

'That's… surprising.'

'Why?'

'Well, she just left him… Why should she get to ask for anything?' Galadriel frowns. 'But your father is more forgiving than I.'

'He is.'

'He should take the Ring.'

'He won't.'

'I know. He's a better person.' Galadriel smiles. 'Beautiful irony.'

Arwen holds on tighter. She doesn’t want to think about beautiful irony or anything else. She wants to cling to Galadriel as long as she can because soon she will be someone else. And that person might not love her as much.

Galadriel covers Arwen's face in kisses. 'Dearest, I love you.' Galadriel kisses her eyes. ‘I will always love you. I swear.’

'You do?' Arwen says. 'Then I swear I won't hate you! And you can't tell me not to.'

Galadriel studies her, accepting it.

‘All right, my little love.’

* * *

Elrond wakes up near Elladan. He hadn’t realised it was possible to fall asleep. His arms are wrapped around Elladan, and Elladan’s head is on his shoulder.

Elrond lies awake until Elladan stirs.

‘I’m glad you finally slept,’ Elladan says. He puts his hand to Elrond’s cheek. Elrond turns his face to kiss it.

‘You should leave,’ he says. ‘And go to your mother.’

‘No,’ Elladan says. ‘I want to fight.’

Elrond holds his hand and kisses the heel of his palm.

‘Will you miss me?’ Elrond asks. ‘If I’m gone?’

‘Of course, Ada.’ Elladan strokes Elrond’s hair off his face and behind his ear. His fingers trail from his temple to his chin.

Elrond stares into his eyes.

‘Do you hate me?’

‘Ada, you’re so tired.’

‘But do you hate me? For being bound to me?’

Elladan kisses his forehead.

‘Of course not.’

Elrond looks at the clock. It’s three in the morning. The last time he remembers was five in the evening. So he has slept for awhile.

They will meet later and discuss and then Galadriel will take the Ring and he will be bound to her. He needs to know what that is like. But he doesn’t know if Elladan will tell him.

‘Ella?’ he whispers.

‘Mm?’

‘Do you hate me?’

Elladan laces their fingers together. He presses his knees to Elrond’s until one of his legs slips into his lap.

‘I don’t know what you’re asking.’

Elladan looks like his mother. He has her gracefully sweeping brows and pointed cupid’s bow. Her gentle eyes and small chin. His hair is Elrond’s ebony with traces of Celebrían’s silver.

‘Do you hate me?’ Elrond repeats. ‘For this? A life bound to my fate. For a choice that impossible.’

Elladan lowers his eyes.

‘It’s not you who created that choice. Nor you who has hurt me. I do not regret my life, if that is what you are asking. I am glad to have been born, however painful life may be. You can’t save me from pain.’

‘I wish I could.’

‘I know. I could not ask for a greater love.’

Elladan places his hand over Elrond’s heart. Elrond holds it there.

‘Darling,’ he says. ‘Promise me.’

Elladan’s gaze snaps up.

‘If I die,’ Elrond says. ‘Go to your mother.’

Elladan stares at him for a very long time because Elrond has never asked him to promise anything.

Finally, Elladan says, ‘I can’t. I couldn’t leave the world in trouble. I couldn’t rest. I’m sorry. I couldn’t. I couldn’t.’

And Elrond says, ‘I know.’

* * *

‘Are we in agreement?’ Galadriel says.

The three bearers of the elven rings have gathered before the meeting for their own meeting. They are on the porch, alone, and not even Glorfindel is there.

The day is grey with fog, but it is not raining. It is warm in a dewy way. The wind carries pricks of water.

‘You will take the Ring,’ Gandalf says. ‘And fight Sauron and all his armies, and we will be by your side. And what good or what evil comes of it, we will accept.’

Galadriel bows her head in acceptance.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Even though there is no hope. We will fight.’

‘And what of the Valar?’ Elrond inquires. ‘What will they do?’

‘The Valar will turn their faces,’ Gandalf says.

‘Good,’ Elrond says. ‘I wouldn’t want them to stare.’

Gandalf’s black eyes flicker. His mouth turns up in a slight smile.

Elrond looks down at his ring. He has worn it such a long time now. It is still beautiful.

‘Do you think It will break our minds?’ Elrond asks.

‘It might,’ Galadriel says. ‘It might not. But it will change you. And it will change me. And we will not be who we are now any longer. There will be no secrets amongst us.’

Elrond looks up. Galadriel is serene. Her face is unmoved and unreadable.

Elrond looks down again. He has secrets. He has secrets and other people’s secrets and secrets about secrets and memories he doesn’t dare to stir. They flicker on the edges of his mind, and he feels her eyes on him, and he drowns them again.

‘Elrond,’ she says. ‘What is the worst thing you’ve ever wanted to do to me?’

Elrond twists the ring. So she caught that one.

‘Strike you,’ he says, and he feels her frown. ‘No, that’s wrong. One time I wanted to kill you. But just once.’

‘I see,’ she says. ‘I had the same thought. Once.’

He nods. ‘So about the same thing then.’

Leaves flitter over the porch.

‘I do not blame you for what happened,’ she says. ‘That was my curse. Not yours. And I cannot blame you for her love, though I would have liked to keep her forever beside me. I am just sad that I will never see her. I wanted to see her again.’

‘Maybe,’ Gandalf says. ‘Maybe you will still someday.’

‘No,’ Galadriel says. ‘I have given up hope. I shall hope no longer.’ She studies Elrond. ‘But you, Elrond. You can leave. I won’t blame you. You can leave, and I will find someone to take your ring, or I will bear it myself. You can go.’

‘I cannot,’ Elrond says. ‘I will not leave. I shall stay, and I shall be your general. And I shall fight, for as long as I am alive. Perhaps even after.’

Galadriel nods once.

‘And you, Mithrandir?’ she asks. ‘Will you see this through?’

‘Yes,’ Gandalf says.

Galadriel smiles at him.

‘When you find my secrets,’ Elrond whispers. ‘Don’t hate me. Please. I can’t bear it if you hate me. Please.’

Galadriel’s face softens.

‘Elrond, you’re panicking.’

Elrond nods. That’s true.

‘Do you hold my upbringing against me?’ he asks.

‘No,’ she says. ‘I never did. Although I’ll admit I pitied you. Most did.’

‘I was so good,’ he said. ‘Elros was so horrid. If you’re simplifying life.’ His voice trembles. ‘Though it’s impossible to simplify. I just meant, he fought longer.’

‘Elrond, I am not going to judge you. You don’t have to tell me everything. I’ll know soon enough.’

‘That’s why I want to tell you now. I don’t want you to find out after. You are an Elf. And I will never be one.’

'It's fine,' Galadriel says. 'Elves aren't holy. Surely you know that.’

Elrond looks at her. Her hair shimmers even in the dim light of the fog. He touches it, and she watches him. A strand of her hair catches on his ring, and he pulls it off and lets the wind take it.

‘I suppose I do,’ he says.

Gandalf bows his head.

‘Then we will try,’ Galadriel says. ‘And we will have no secrets. And if we break the world, I hope we will break it better than he would. And we will have no hope. And no one will save us. And we will save no one.’

‘Tell me how the Valar are fair and good, Mithrandir,’ Elrond says. ‘I’d like, now, to believe you.’

‘I don’t think they realise,’ Gandalf says. ‘I didn’t want this task. I thought it was frightening. And it is. And they don’t want it.’

‘I love you,’ Elrond says. ‘I don’t love them, but I love you.’

‘They aren’t as strong as you think,’ Gandalf says. ‘And for that I am sorry, dear one.’

Elrond starts, and his eyes flicker. He searches Gandalf’s face.

‘Will Frodo give me the Ring?’ Galadriel asks.

‘He says that he will,’ Gandalf answers.

‘Then shall we call the meeting?’ Galadriel says. ‘So that we do not lose more time.’

‘Yes,’ Gandalf says.

Elrond stands. He goes back inside where it feels too warm for a few moments. He will get those needed. It will be done soon.

‘Elrond,’ Arwen says, coming to him quickly. ‘Maglor is here. He says that Curunír is coming.’

‘With an army?’ he asks. ‘Where is Maglor?’

She’s already taken his arm and is leading him swiftly to his room.

‘No, he has no army,’ she says as they rush up the stairs together. ‘My brothers have gone to see. Maglor says he’s close. He says he’s passed an army, but it wasn’t with Curunír.’

Maglor stands when they enter Elrond’s room. Elrond throws his arms about his neck.

‘What terrible news have you brought me?’

Maglor holds him, arms gentle around him, hands soft on him.

‘I saw Curunír coming. I saw an army, but I know not whose. I am here to warn you, but I know nothing more.’

Elrond nods and allows himself another second in Maglor’s arms. Then he pulls back and looks for clean clothes for Maglor to wear.

‘Come to the meeting,’ he says. ‘You know a lot about fighting.’

Maglor draws in a slow breath through his nose.

‘All right,’ he agrees.

‘Galadriel is here,’ Elrond says. ‘And Mithrandir, though I don’t think you’ve ever met him.’ He lays out the clothes. They’re about the same size, though Maglor is thinner now. ‘You can wash quickly,’ he says, ‘and then Arwen will bring you. I need to find the others.’

Maglor nods.

Elrond touches Arwen’s arm and leaves them. He adds warning Galadriel about Maglor to the list in his head. She’ll just need a sentence. It’s fine. They’re both stately. The worst they’ll do is exchange cold, polite words.

He sees Erestor helping Bilbo up the stairs to the porch. Frodo is with them. They’re keeping this group as small as possible. The Ring Bearers, Erestor, Glorfindel, family. They’re not making any decisions, not voting on anything.

A quick and fast take over. A declaration after. Then war. They haven’t sorted out those details. Someone will have to stay behind in Imladris. Whoever wishes to fight will join with the army of Lothlórien. They’ll send Legolas back with the news to Thranduil. Greenwood will fight with them, almost certainly. He doesn’t think about a different possibility there. There isn’t time to grieve it.

They’ll send the hobbits back to the Shire and tell them to prepare for a war. He makes another note to send a warrior or two along to get them started. This will be too great for anyone to sit out.

The Ringwraiths will yield to Galadriel. She will probably send them to fight whatever army Maglor has passed and to Mordor to fight Sauron’s vast army there. That’s what Elrond would recommend, at least. He would like to leave Arwen and Glorfindel in Imladris.

‘Elrond,’ Elrohir says suddenly, clearly, in his mind. ‘Curunír says he wants to surrender.’

Elrond feels the heat in Elrohir’s body. He’s scared.

‘He’s surrendered to us,’ Elrohir says. ‘What do we do?’

‘Stay there,’ Elrond answers. ‘I’ll ask of Mithrandir and Galadriel.’

Elrond dashes up to the porch. He clasps his hands in front of him.

‘Maglor is here,’ he says calmly.

Galadriel’s thumb jerks. Her face is still. So she didn’t know.

‘He came to warn us that Curunír is approaching Imladris,’ Elrond continues. ‘A guard went out to watch him, and he has surrendered to them. They say he is alone. He says that he has come with the wish to surrender.’

‘Why does he wish to surrender?’ Glorfindel asks.

‘He says that Sauron has turned on him, calling him fickle and a traitor and untrustworthy. That Sauron no longer has a need for him, and that, rather than facing Sauron’s wrath he comes to entreat us, and be of what use he can be,’ Elrond says, repeating what Elrohir has told him. ‘He says that Sauron has already set an army here, and two of the Maiar march with it.’

Elrond is grateful that they are close enough to be able to speak in their minds. It is a much stronger bond than most have, though not as strong as the bond he has with the other Ring Bearers or what he once had with Elros.

‘That sounds like a trap,’ Erestor says.

‘It does,’ says Galadriel.

‘It’s up to you,’ Gandalf says to Elrond. ‘This is your domain. Do you think you can handle Curunír in it, if he has come with ill intent?’

‘We should talk to him,’ Elrond says. ‘For if he is telling the truth, he knows much of Sauron’s plans, and much of his mind. I don’t think he can do harm alone.’

Arwen comes up with Maglor.

Maglor is in soft grey, unarmed. He stands beside Elrond, and Galadriel stares at him, and he bows once, and she holds her chin a bit higher and says, ‘Maglor,’ once and then that’s over.

Elrond introduces him to the rest as Maglor, son of Fëanor, son of Finwë, and Frodo gasps, and Bilbo puts a hand to his mouth. They’d been staring anyway.

‘Please sit,’ Elrond says to him, and Maglor sits where he’s been pointed.

Then there is a long and terrible silence, and Frodo chews on his fingernails, and Elrond tells him to stop without thinking because he has so many things to keep straight in his head that ‘Frodo, please don’t bite your nails,’ leaps out of him, even though Frodo isn’t a child, much less his child.

Frodo stops, and everyone is staring at him. Bilbo chuckles. Gandalf smiles.

They’re waiting for Curunír now. This will drag things out. It’s giving Elrond time to think things over, and he doesn’t want to think things over, because if he does, he doesn’t know if he’ll have the will to go through with it.

He sits, hands folded on his lap, regal. He’d perfected this look before he was eight, sitting with his chin up and his eyes distant yet aware, mouth in a line that could not be interpreted.

Maglor had said, ‘You truly are a prince,’ but Elrond had never been a prince.

Maglor’s composure is softer but more regal and less practised, like Galadriel’s. They both have a look that shows they have never questioned their place in the world. How Maglor has managed to keep it this long, Elrond could not say.

Elrond had rarely seen that look in the long, dark years of his youth. Maglor hadn’t kept it up around Maedhros and Elros and him. But he keeps it now, and it hides the pain of his broken heart and the long years of solitude, and the blood on his hands.

But he cannot hide the burn. His hands rest at his sides, and the right one is burnt across, smooth and dead and white.

Galadriel sits still enough that she could be stone. Her gaze rests on Elrond.

‘What did you need to be forgiven for?’ she does not speak it, out loud or in his mind, but he can feel. ‘Why would I hate you?’

Elrond doesn’t respond. She was right before. She will soon learn everything, but it won’t matter then, because he won’t be himself any more, or ever again his own person. To hate him, she would have to hate herself. Maybe she will. But he has some moments left in his own mind, private and deep, creeping with secrets.

* * *

Curunír is led up, bound, with a guard, Elrohir at the head. Curunír is dressed simply in green and grey travelling clothes. His mouth is bound with black, and it creates a sharp line over his face. He looks ill.

‘He says he knows the Maiar,’ Elladan says. ‘And what they can do.’

He stands behind Curunír.

‘I do,’ Curunír says, soft, in the air. Frodo shudders, and Estel sucks his breath in with a sharp hiss. Everyone can hear. ‘You cannot wield the Ring against Sauron, against Time, against Death, against the Sea, against Sorrow, against Age, against Starlight.’ His voice evaporates.

Galadriel looks to Gandalf.

‘Yes,’ Gandalf says. ‘One is Ossë.’

Elrond shuts his eyes.

‘So Sauron betrayed you for your treachery,’ Galadriel says. ‘You think we will believe you?’

‘One is Hormë,’ Curunír continues, voice weak in the air. Elrond allows it, for his power does not lie in it. His voice is stretched. His eyes have fear. ‘The one who can stretch or shorten time, so the span seems different.

‘She held me for two thousand years while Sauron tortured my mind. It was only a minute.

‘I fear them. You cannot fight them. You are too weak.

‘More will come. They do not fear any more.’

Elrond does not let his face turn from its proud look. His heart had taken joy in a moment of selfishness. If they had no hope in fighting, he would not have to yield himself.

‘I don’t understand,’ Bilbo says. ‘Isn’t this the wizard that—’

‘Yes,’ Gandalf cuts him off.

Elrond looks to Arwen. She stands beside her brother, watching Curunír.

‘So why are we—’ Bilbo tries again.

‘We’re running low on options,’ Gandalf says.

‘I am not lying.’ Curunír’s voice is a shiver in the fog. ‘You were right. There is no joining with Mairon. He takes and uses and then casts aside. There will be many wars as he fights the servants he has betrayed. I do not think Elves or Men will survive.’

‘Do you have thoughts besides doom?’ Glorfindel asks. ‘Or did you just come to say there is no hope and then die?’

‘Well, you could throw it in the sea,’ Curunír says.

Gandalf’s eyes flash like coals.

‘But then there is Ossë. And an army headed by Maiar marching to your doorstep.

‘So you can fight, but Imladris has lost its army. You can flee, but you are surrounded. You can throw it to the sea, but Ossë will find it.

‘I do not offer hope beyond what I could do to hold this army away.’

‘Give it to me,’ Maglor says, ‘for I am thin and stretched between worlds sometimes, and I will take it to a place far from here, either in time or in distance, though which, I cannot say.

Curunír’s brow furrows.

‘Yes, it is Maglor,’ Elrond says.

Frodo frowns. Saruman isn’t blindfolded, but he is not able to see? He wonders if Sauron has blinded him, or if somehow Saruman could recognise Maglor by speech and not by face.

Frodo feels dizzy. The world is clipping with black trees and tangles of spider silk at the edge of his vision.

‘Gandalf,’ he whispers. ‘Gandalf, I feel sick. There’s a horror. A horror inside of me.’

Gandalf rests his hand on Frodo’s head, and his vision clears of the black trees swaying and deep pockets of midnight.

‘Is it Saruman?’ Frodo asks.

‘It’s Elrond,’ Gandalf answers, barely moving his lips. ‘It would be best if you were not here.’

Frodo shrinks backwards from Elrond. He feels young again. Young in a horrible way that strips him of his identity and reduces him to some lines marked on a calendar.

His vision swims with deep, still water, black and pulling. He feels himself sliding into it, and the cold is instantly numbing. Gandalf has let go of him. He is sinking in the water, and trees grow around him, deep, deep in the lake.

His vision clears again. Arwen has one hand on his head and the other on his shoulder.

It’s the Ring or the Wraith wound, Frodo thinks. Bilbo isn’t drowning. He holds Arwen’s hand to him so she can’t let go. He doesn’t think he could bear it again.

‘I think we should listen to Maglor,’ Galadriel says, her voice surprisingly clear after the water and trees and Saruman’s stretched, disembodied sound.

‘No,’ says Strider. ‘He doesn’t even know where he’s going.’

‘I can bend his servants,’ Galadriel says. ‘And I can bend the Rings. And I can bend Sauron, perhaps. I cannot bend what I have seen, coming from the reaches of the world. They will gather. And a war like this war… nothing living will remain. Just those bound to rings or vows… all will be half dead. That is worse than defeat.’


	3. take you out

There is silence. Finally, Elrond speaks.

‘What are these other worlds like?’ he asks Maglor.

‘I don’t know,’ Maglor says, ‘but they are all empty. Soft and grey and tempered by mist.’

The fog is lifting.

‘And where are they?’ Elrond asks.

‘I don’t know,’ Maglor answers. ‘But they aren’t here.’

‘But you cannot guarantee they are away from him,’ Arwen says. ‘Or even that you can stay there.’

Maglor watches his fingers. ‘What choice do we have?’

‘We can fight,’ Glorfindel says.

Maglor studies Frodo, and Frodo hates how it makes him feel like he’s shrinking.

‘We can’t fight,’ Maglor says. ‘It’s over.’

‘No,’ Frodo says. ‘I won’t let you.’

Maglor’s expression does not turn.

‘I’m sorry,’ Frodo says, ‘but I won’t. I can’t let you.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Maglor says.

Frodo studies Maglor. He looks like a watercolour painting. His hair falls across his face in deep ebony shadowed with grey. His hand is burnt white and flat. He seems at once both translucent and too hard around the edges, like a paper cut out lined with ink.

‘You don’t know what you’re doing,’ Frodo said. ‘Even fighting a hopeless battle seems a better option than hiding in places you don’t even know. Gandalf.’ Frodo turns to him. ‘You—’

‘I owe you an explanation,’ Gandalf cuts him off quickly. ‘Yes.’

Frodo hates that Gandalf keeps cutting them off. Gandalf doesn’t want to explain. He doesn’t want to justify himself, because he doesn’t know if he can. Frodo knows Gandalf well enough to know this. He’s glad he does, for he is beginning to realise that he doesn’t know who Gandalf really is.

He never did, but he pretended to. Now he can’t keep up the illusion.

‘I thought you said we could never, ever, ever use the Ring,’ Frodo says, and his voice sounds like ice. ‘And then we were going to use It to fight? But now we aren’t and instead we’re giving It to some… wraith?’ He eyes Maglor again. Maglor tilts his head minutely.

‘He’s not a wraith,’ Elrond says quietly.

Frodo doesn’t look Elrond, because he’s sure he’ll soften if he does, and he needs to be firm.

‘And we’re sending It away into nowhere?’ Frodo’s voice is rising even though he doesn’t want it to. ‘And our other option is to gain mastery of this power, no matter what end it will bring you to? Even if it means enslaving everyone? Even if it means destroying your friends? Their minds? Their being? And I’m supposed to let you. And you’re going to. And… and… doesn’t that make you evil?’

Gandalf stoops. He looks worn. He sits beside Frodo and Bilbo and he rests his hand on Frodo’s shoulder.

‘The world has seen battles before that ruined it. Many, many died.’

‘We’re all supposed to trust you, aren’t we?’

‘Frodo,’ Gandalf says gently.

Frodo pulls away from him, and his vision is clouded with stars sweeping like rain about him and the shadows of trees that twist and ebb. Frodo takes a breath, and Arwen touches him again and the visions fade. It is dark magic, but it is not evil, beyond confusion.

‘I don’t understand,’ Frodo says.

It was supposed to make sense still. The Ring was evil, and they were going to destroy It. Gandalf was good, and Elrond was good. They weren’t going to talk about making difficult choices and hoping that they wouldn’t destroy the entire world.

There wasn’t supposed to be darkness clouding his vision while the wizard who betrayed them all knelt on the floor offering advice. This was too much. Frodo sucked his breath in. He’d known Gandalf for as long as he had been alive. He’d come in and out of the Shire with news and with that gentle smile, and Frodo would lie in the bushes along the road and spy on him as he walked with Bilbo.

Now Gandalf is saying they will have to use the evil or hide the evil in dark worlds that only this ghost can see. Now Gandalf is saying Elrond can cause nightmares. Now a stranger with a hand burnt white who chills his blood is asking him to give him the Ring.

Now it’s terribly obvious that Frodo’s just a very silly, sheltered hobbit from a very protected part of the world standing before lords and king and wizards and the wise, and he is saying no to them because he thinks he knows better based on a turning feeling in his stomach.

Elrond watches him. Elrond who was by Gil-galad’s side in battle. Elrond who aided Bilbo. Elrond who saved Frodo from what may have been death or may have been worse. Elrond is watching him with his kind grey eyes, and Frodo has never been so afraid.

He doesn’t want the good in the world to be hopeless. Maybe they always have been, but this is worse. He doesn’t know how to explain why it is. But it feels worse. It’s like a nightmare where you beg and beg yourself to wake up but you can’t and everything drags out long and terribly clear so you slowly come to realise you aren’t dreaming. This is real, isn’t it?

He never has dreams this vivid. He never has dreams like this where he can touch everything around him and everything is solid, and he can make out all the details of everyone’s clothes and see the lines on their skin. It’s too real. He can’t wake up.

He’s supposed to believe them. It’s hard. They’re talking about wars they’ve seen that he’s only heard about in poems so ancient they have been translated seven times.

Gandalf is telling him to be understanding. This is hard on them too. They’re going to fight for something better but everything’s going to fall apart. They can use the Ring, or they can try to hide it. They must decide. Either way, Frodo must give It up. Then he can go home.

Frodo can go home to a home that will never be again. He can bake bread and eat it with butter and cheese until an army turns up on his doorstep and destroys everyone he loves. Gandalf will be gone. Everything will be gone. He’s going to lose It. He’s going to lose his entire mind.

Frodo swallows. Elrond is still watching him. Gandalf is watching him. Galadriel is watching the chain around his neck.

‘I can’t trust you,’ Frodo says, and he looks at Maglor even though his eyes are like lances, and his skin seems fragile enough to break over muscles and bones.

‘Try,’ Maglor says. ‘Please.’

Galadriel tilts her head, and her hair falls over her face. She pushes it back.

‘Frodo,’ Gandalf says.

‘He’s right, Gandalf,’ Bilbo says. ‘Who is he?’

‘And who is Frodo?’ Galadriel says.

‘Well, I know Frodo,’ Bilbo says.

‘How do we know these worlds aren’t more than your mind, Maglor?’ Arwen says.

‘They aren’t,’ Maglor says. ‘They are deep, and they are empty.’

‘You’ve spent too much time alone,’ Arwen says.

Frodo shifts on the bench. The sun is white behind the mist. It may rain.

‘I’m not mad,’ Maglor says, and Elrond laughs once, high and sudden, but his face does not move.

‘I didn’t say you were,’ Arwen said. ‘But you have been alone a long time.’

Elrond touches Arwen’s arm just above her wrist.

‘You’ve spent too much time alone.’ Merry said that often. Merry teased and laughed, but then he would grow serious and say. ‘Frodo, I worry about you, all alone in here, with only your books and that ring and whatever gold you have hidden away. You’re like a dragon, you know that, Frodo? You spend too much time alone.’

‘We can’t trust it,’ Frodo says, and he keeps his voice as firm as he can manage.

‘But what can we do?’ Galadriel says. ‘We won’t get help. We know we won’t get help.’ She stares at Frodo.

He wishes she wouldn’t ask him. They’re supposed to be the ones with answers. Maybe they do have them, and he just refuses to believe.

‘Let’s vote,’ Elrond says. ‘If you are in favour of giving the Ring to Maglor and letting him take it to whatever world he may see, please raise your hand now.’

Frodo sticks his hands in his pockets. He hears Elrond laugh again, that same high, pained laugh. Elrond’s lips are shut, and his face is grave.

Galadriel raises her hand. Then Elladan. Aragorn. Gandalf. Glorfindel.

Frodo feels tight all over. All of his muscles are waiting to bolt. He wonders if he will fall. He might. He could. He swallows.

Elrond keeps his hands folded in front of him. Arwen does not raise her hand, nor Elrohir. Erestor doesn’t.

Bilbo hesitates. He looks at Maglor and then at Frodo.

‘You’re the tie breaker, Bilbo Baggins,’ Elrond says softly.

‘I vote against,’ Bilbo says.

Frodo breathes out.

‘Then we discuss more.’ Elrond sits down again.

‘We need to buy time,’ Glorfindel says. ‘If we decide to choose neither option of Maglor or Galadriel.’

Frodo half listens to him. He doesn’t know much of war, but he knows enough that he knows they don’t have enough soldiers. He tries not to shake. In the end, he will have to listen to them, no matter what they decide.

He will have to.

Saruman betrayed them. Here he is on the floor. He is bound and gagged, and he feels broken. Frodo shivers.

‘We might be able to manage that,’ Gandalf says. He doesn’t sound like he believes it. He sounds like he wants Frodo to just agree and give him the Ring so that they can decide when Frodo is gone.

Gandalf’s talking to Frodo now. He is saying to trust him. Give him the Ring. Go home. Wait. Wait and wait and wait. Maybe he’ll die before the war comes to the shire. Maybe they’ll hold it off until then. Maybe Bilbo will come home with them. What use would he have in Rivendell now if it will become an army base?

‘Frodo?’ Galadriel says, and she sounds so far away.

Frodo touches his shirt. The Ring is beneath it. He feels the heat of the metal. It doesn’t belong to him. He might belong to It. He’s dying in the grey morning.

‘I am sorry, Frodo,’ Gandalf says.

Frodo has never heard him sound that defeated. It makes him sound old, terribly old, like he’s kept memories from the first light of the first morning deep inside him and now everything is aching to get out all at once.

Frodo pulls away from Arwen, and the world spins with deepness, but he pushes it through it, past Gandalf, past Elrohir. He takes the steps as quickly as he dares. He isn’t stopped.

He stops at the bottom of the stairs, and he has nowhere to go. He turns left because the sun is brighter there.

No one has followed yet.

He is running from problems he cannot solve with a magical ring that does not belong to him. He is in a strange valley and there is an army coming. How can he get home even if he gives It up and leaves now. They were right before, the Wise. He should have grieved as if he were going to die.

Gandalf places his hand on Frodo’s shoulder. Frodo doesn’t turn.

‘Just take It.’

Gandalf does not take It. He keeps his hand on Frodo’s shoulder.

‘I don’t understand,’ Frodo says. ‘You’ll set another dark lord.’

‘In the hopes,’ Gandalf said. ‘That she will be defeated someday, and, in some distant future, there will be good things again.’

‘I can’t look that far ahead,’ Frodo says.

Gandalf draws in a long breath of the cool morning air.

‘We can give it to Maglor and hope he cannot return,’ he says.

So he can spend the span of the world alone with only It for company. So he can go mad in the depths there.

So they can hope he won’t seize the power and return, another dark lord.

‘We keep going in circles,’ Frodo says. ‘Just take It.’

He fumbles to undo the chain. He means it. He’s sick of it. He’s sick of waiting and wondering. They won’t find an answer. He’s dizzy.

He lifts the Ring out, and it’s heavy enough that he tips forward. He passes it back to Gandalf without looking at him. He pushes the chain against Gandalf’s hand.

Gandalf takes it.

‘Thank you, Frodo.’

'Do what you have to do. Send him away, if you must.' 

Frodo can see It, swinging, from the corner of his eye. It’s beautiful. He wants it. He presses his hands together. He’s tired. He’ll find Sam. Sam, who he left sleeping.

‘I’m going to bed, Gandalf,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to look at all of you. I don’t want you telling me what I should and shouldn’t do.’

‘I love you,’ Gandalf says, and Frodo leaves, and he lets him.

* * *

Gandalf comes back with the Ring on the chain. He keeps it away from his body and sets it on the table, and he does not touch it.

Bilbo stands.

Gandalf doesn’t stop him from speaking now. Bilbo is angry, and he should be. But Bilbo doesn’t scold, and he doesn’t start a story. He only says, ‘Did you hurt Frodo?’

‘Frodo gave It willingly,’ Gandalf said. ‘And he’s gone to bed. His part in this story is over. He's changed his vote.'

‘So are we sending the Ring to this far off land?’ Bilbo says after a moment.

‘I suppose so,’ Gandalf says. ‘If Maglor knows how to get there and can stay there.’

‘Should I go with him?’ Bilbo says.

‘No,’ Maglor says. ‘You don’t have to do that.’

‘Seems awful for him to go alone,’ Bilbo says.

‘It’s an atonement,’ Maglor says simply.

Bilbo shrugs. ‘Don’t know if you’ve sinned all that much.’

Maglor smiles a little. He has a beautiful smile still. Gandalf touches his arm. Maglor starts. His skin is warm. They all had warm skin like that, the Fëanorians.

Elrond's eyes are dark. He sets his face unreadable. 

‘Ella,’ he says. ‘Please gather what would have been the Fellowship of the Ring here. They have a right to know.’

Elladan bows his head and leaves quickly.

Gandalf does not expect Frodo to come, but he returns with the others. He does not look at the Ring.

Gandalf stands quietly and lets Elrond explain. He’s glad he doesn’t have to. He doesn’t have to field Boromir’s questions or Gimli’s anger. Gimli’s anger or Boromir’s questions. Pippin demands answers from Gandalf directly, but Gandalf lets Elrond deal with them. It’s selfish, yes, and Elrond will weep later, but it will be easier to comfort him then.

'So now we shall see this world,' Elrond concludes. He does not look at Gandalf.

Maglor lifts the Ring.

‘If I sit,’ he says. ‘And I think of nothing, the veil between the worlds opens.’

‘I don’t believe this,’ Boromir says, and for a moment, Gandalf thinks he might try to fight them all, but he is standing close to Elladan, and he doesn’t.

The air grows cold. It is stretched tight and thin like an old cotton cloth pulled to the point of breaking. But it smells like iron.

And then it’s hot. And the heat is like fire against them for a moment and then subsides into deep cold, and the air in front of them is blue.

‘There,’ Maglor says. ‘There. It has split.’

Gandalf has seen places like this before. You can happen across them in remote places, deep in the night, where they glow before you, inviting. But leaving might not be possible, so he has never gone.

Maglor holds the Ring. The air is burning, and the air is plunging, and lights glitter in the world before them, like fireflies in a summer field.

‘It’s not empty,’ Galadriel says.

‘It’s not,’ Gandalf says.

The veil splits. The world opens around them.


	4. echoing, echoing, echoing

‘Get back!’ Gandalf cries. He flings his arm out in front of Frodo, shielding him from a sudden rush of warm air, a real hot summer night more distant than a dream. There are fireflies.

Frodo can barely hear Gandalf. He is watching the Ring as it glows in the air, bright gold, burning gold. It is alive, and it is speaking to him.

‘Don’t take me there!’ Frodo hears it call. ‘Save me, my lord, my master! Save me, and I will worship you! Frodo!’

It speaks his name clearly, and Frodo rushes for it, grabbing it where it hangs in the air, catching it down against his chest. He was a fool to let it go. He weeps as he cradles it. The Ring burns him, a punishment he will accept. He will never let it go again.

‘Frodo!’ Aragorn shouts, stumbling to his knees beside him. He grabs at the Ring, and Frodo hits him.

‘What did you do!’ Galadriel’s voice is like a storm.

Elrond lifts his hand towards Elrohir, and Elrohir strikes Saruman hard. Saruman keels to the side and lies on the floor, robes a mess around him.

It does not stop. The world still swallows.

Elrond nods at Galadriel and Maglor is down next, through Frodo cannot tell if it was a blow or some spell.

‘Frodo!’ Aragorn grabs at Frodo’s hand.

Frodo smells his skin burning, and the smell is worse than the pain. The pain is distant. He cannot feel it in any real way. He keeps the Ring clutched to his chest. His shirt smoulders and catches flame.

‘Frodo!’ Aragorn claws at Frodo’s hand. ‘Let go!’

Frodo does not let go. He cannot let go.

It weeps, and It begs: ‘Do not let them take me, Frodo!’

It’s never spoken to him like this before, though It has whispered his name and murmured answers to questions he's asked in the long nights. Frodo will not let It go, not even if he catches flame and is burnt to ash.

Elladan drops to his knees beside Frodo, and Frodo screams when Elladan grabs him, and he screams again when Aragorn seizes his hand and pries his fingers open.

‘Gandalf!’ Galadriel calls.

‘Get back!’ Gandalf shouts. ‘Aragorn!’

Frodo does not know where back is. The stone tiles of the porch have turned to green grass bent beneath a strong wind. He sees the wetness of the earth seeping into Elladan’s black leggings.

Galadriel grabs the Ring from Frodo and he cannot breathe from the shock of it leaving him and then the pain after. He feels it all at once: his burnt hand, his burnt chest. He falls to the side, but Elladan keeps him up. He cannot see Elrond’s house any more.

‘No,’ Gandalf says, just once.

Galadriel stands in an empty field with the Ring on her open palm. There is nothing around them but the grass that runs into trees.

Maglor stirs. It was a spell then.

‘Open it,’ Galadriel says. ‘Maglor.’

‘Frodo, take me,’ the Ring whispers.

Maglor sits, and he rests his hand on his head, and minutes pass. Maglor looks up, finally, his face drawn.

‘Maglor,’ Galadriel says, and her voice trembles.

The world stays silent. It is warm.

* * *

_common era, 2018_

Elrohir sits on the grass beside his brother. There are some fireflies out, blinking on and off around them. He watches Galadriel and Maglor as they talk together, trying to think of ways to open the veil. Elrond holds onto Galadriel’s arm, but he has not spoken for some time. Gandalf went walking again, to clear his mind. Elrohir does not think they will be able to open it. He has heard of people falling into other worlds – words spoken in secret, hushed and often unbelieved – but never of anyone leaving and then returning to their own.

Once, he saw an open veil, beside a black lake in the night. There had been stars and tall pines, and then the world had grown much too still, and a piece of the woods had opened onto a world blazing with sunlight, and he had stepped towards it, wanting it, filled with a need to taste this newness.

But you cannot return. You cannot return.

Elrohir rests his hand on Elladan’s arm, just below his elbow. He is dizzy with the pain and weakness of trying to help open it. It is strong magic, but it has not helped. The worlds have drifted apart again. They will not find it.

Frodo is still asleep. Elrond put him to sleep before treating his burns for the pain he was in. The hobbits are gathered around him. Bilbo holds his head on his lap.

Galadriel holds the Ring, the chain wrapped around her fingers. Elrohir watches it, watches her.

He does not know if she will give it up now. He does not like that she has it. He loves her, and this will change her. He loves her, but he loves his father more.

Elrond is exhausted, in pain. If Galadriel keeps the ring, he will be ruined. Elrohir rests his other hand on the small of his brother’s back. Elladan glances at him.

Arwen studies the sun. She searches the trees for Gandalf. She sits beside them.

‘I don’t understand,’ she says in their minds. ‘Why would Sauron want his ring to come here?’

‘Maybe he didn’t intend for the ring to come here, just us,’ Elladan says. ‘If it was Sauron who pulled open the veil so wildly and not just some fluke. It would be an easy way to get rid of his most powerful opposition.’

‘I think it’s too risky to be Sauron’s doing, either way,’ Elrohir says. ‘Maglor couldn’t control what he was doing, and no one should ever have agreed.’

‘We can’t change what happened,’ Arwen says.

‘Maybe not,’ says Elrohir. ‘But we should have fought harder, instead of agreeing to listen. Galadriel cannot take the ring. Maglor cannot be sent to be alone in a world with nothing.’

‘That’s not happening now, for we are here.’ Arwen looks at Galadriel. ‘And she won’t keep it.’

Elrohir puts his head on Elladan’s shoulder. Elladan leans his head against Elrohir’s head. Elrohir does not feel as confident as Arwen. This is a greed Galadriel could fall to.

Elrohir closes his eyes. He tries to be grateful that he at least has his family. He tries not to think about never seeing Celeborn again. Or his mother. It stings to think of that. Elrond looks to him. He felt it. Elrond finally lets go of Galadriel and sits down near his children. They don’t speak out loud or in their minds.

Elrohir knows that Elrond intended to argue. Let them see the world and then make a list of reasons why Maglor should not be sent there. But this happened too quickly. It’s too fast. They’re all unprepared. It was just a few seconds. It should have taken longer. This is shock. He shakes his head, trying to clear it. It is shock. He cannot get rid of it, even though he knows what it is.

Elrohir was going to argue too. And Arwen. Elladan voted against them, but that doesn’t matter now. Elladan would sacrifice Maglor’s sanity to save the world. To save their father. Elrohir understands that. If they ran out of options, he would too.

‘I don’t understand,’ Pippin says. His voice is soft and small. Elrohir is glad when Merry puts his arms around him. He wants him to be comforted. Elrond will have to think of answers.

Aragorn is near the hobbits. He looks at Elrond, head tilted to on side. Elrond shakes his head, silent.

Galadriel holds the Ring still.

The sun rises.

The sun rose two hours ago. It grows hot. Elrond changes the bandages on Frodo’s burns. He ripped his own shirt for them, as he had no bandages, no equipment. Elrond is good in emergencies. That’s why he’s the one answering questions even though the answers are all ‘we don’t know’ which takes a lot to say when he’s supposed to know everything according to everyone asking.

He doesn’t know where they are or how to get back, and no one else knows either. Gandalf is gone still. Elrond sent his sons out to spy. There are people here. There are houses and roads and wooden poles strung with wires that buzz with energy. There are vehicles that move with engines faster than animals.

The stars are wrong and not wrong. Some the same, some different. It is another world. He can say that much at least. They are in another world. That’s what Maglor said was true, but his worlds were empty, and this one is not, and this world consumed them. Elrond looks to Maglor. Maglor does not meet his gaze.

Glorfindel paces around all of them. He is thinking half out loud, half to himself. Erestor has a paper and pen. He writes down everything he can remember reading about such things.

Aragorn paces too. He paces and touches the ground. He is not scouting. He is guarding Frodo. Gimli and Glóin talk together in low voices. Boromir watches everyone, but he doesn't speak.

‘Saruman,’ Elrond says.

Saruman turns his head.

‘Saruman, what do you know?’ Elrond asks. It aches to say his name. Saruman. Saruman, who he trusted. Galadriel didn’t. But he did. Trusted and loved. Loves still. Elrond pushes that away. He doesn’t need to think of that. All he needs are answers. ‘Does Sauron have a role in this?’

‘I do not know,’ Saruman answers.

‘Did you do this?’ Elrond asks. They speak in their minds. No one else can hear.

‘I did not. I did not plan this. If Sauron planned this, I did and do not know.’

Elrond believes him as much as he can believe him. Saruman is deeply wounded. His mind feels broken. That would have been hard to do, but it would he harder to fake. Elrond twists his ring. He will trust his intuition right now. It’s usually right.

Elrond looks to Galadriel. She still has It, the chain wrapped three times around her hand. Elrond gets to his feet. He is sick and dizzy still, but he stands and goes to her. She stands apart from everyone else.

This will be difficult.

Galadriel stares into Elrond’s eyes. Her eyes are hard. She knows what he’s going to say, and she doesn’t want him to. Her lips tighten into a stubborn line. Elrond narrows his eyes. He holds his hand out. Galadriel’s lips purse. She looks stubborn and insolent, like his children when they were small and refusing chores or bed. Elrond keeps his hand out. He doesn’t ask. If she turns him down once, it will be easier to turn him down again. He just stands in front of her, hand held out, and waits. She stares at him, and he stares back.

Finally, she looks down. She touches his hand, and he slides the chain off her hand, and then the Ring is dangling by its chain in his hand, and it’s beautiful in the sunlight, gold against the deep green of the grass. Elrond draws his breath in. He slides it up into his hand and closes his fingers around it to hide it.

Now he is touching it.

It is warm against his bare skin. It is a warmth that you would want around you, a warmth you would welcome and crave again, needing desperately. Like sunlight, but gentler. Like the warmth by the fireplace, but softer. Like the body of your lover. That’s its warmth, and it washes over him.

He sees soft green hills and sharp, high mountains, all covered with this warmth, all gentle.

‘But I would miss the wild,’ he whispers.

Some of the gentleness lifts. There are tangled bushes and long, grey slants of rain; fire in the fields, waves breaking high and white against orange stone. Elrond smiles. He sees Celebrían. He sees Gil-galad. He sees Elros on a ship on a turquoise sea.

He gives the Ring to Frodo.

Frodo takes it. He puts it around his neck again with trembling fingers. He rolls away from Elrond and presses his face against Bilbo’s leg. Elrond squeezes Bilbo’s arm and stands again.

They will need food and water, shelter. They have things they can sell, like jewellery. Elrond pushes down the images the Ring tempted him with. Sauron is here too. He felt him. They have not escaped.

They leave the place when Gandalf returns. There is no thinness there to exploit. There is just a field, and they cannot stay in open space. Elrond’s sons found a barn for them to take shelter away. It is far from everything, a hay barn, with three sides and a roof, not yet full. They gather in it, among the bales. They will stay here for awhile until they have some more idea of what to do. They can move more at night when they are less likely to be noticed. When they have somewhere to go.

Elrohir leaves them there to find food and water with Elladan and Gandalf. They leave the field with the rolled hay and walk along the side of the road together. It is hot.

The trees are green along the sides of the road, and the fields are swept with the wind. The air smells of the dust and the hay, leaves warmed by the sun, and the sea.

They are close to a sea. They are in another world. The earth smells the same.

Gandalf walks behind them.

The vehicles pass them on the road. The road looks to be made of crushed gravel and asphalt. Elrohir picks up a piece that has broken off. It is hot and slightly sticky in his hand. He drops it again after studying it.

The poles along the road sometimes smell sweet: a strong sweet that seems off. The wires strung between them hum. Elrohir guesses they’re carrying electricity. They feel like electricity. The people here must have found a way to harness it. He would guess their vehicles would run on electricity, but they have fumes. They smell like petroleum. They’re running engines with petroleum or something like it. It’s poisonous to breathe the fumes, though. But maybe they don’t know that or are immune. He covers his mouth and nose as another vehicle goes by.

There’s a town that they reach with half an hour of walking. Here is the sea. It is low and blue, uncovering rocks planted with seaweed and damp sand. Long docks reach into the harbour. Wooden buildings line the hill rising up from the sea: grey shingles, white boards, green shutters. One building is long, built of brick, with a brick chimney that reaches tall into the summer sky. Fishing boats sit in the water, and a bridge rises high above the harbour, arching to an island.

There are people out. They talk together, and Elrohir doesn’t understand them. Gandalf might.

Gandalf stops and talks to an old man in tall rubber boots and a grey shirt spotted with paint and worn through in two places. Gandalf is in grey. He shed his heavy cloak in the heat and left it in the hay barn, and stands now in a loose grey robe and grey trousers, black boots, silver scarf, and tall blue hat. He has dressed the same as long as Elrohir’s known him. Elrond keeps getting him new scarves.

Gandalf leans on his staff, chatting with the man. So he can speak to them. Elrohir isn’t that surprised. Gandalf can just do that, even in another world.

Gandalf speaks and nods and smiles. He’s being nicer than Elrohir is used to. Elrohir stands with his brother. They are both dressed in light mail, leggings, blue tunics, high boots. It’s out of place. Everyone wears light clothing. The man keeps looking them over. Elrohir stares back at him. He looks away.

Gandalf nods and smiles and walks on. Elrohir starts walking again. There are two little dogs in a yard they pass.

‘What did he say?’ Elladan asks Gandalf.

‘Gave the name of the place: North Harbour, Maine,’ Gandalf said. ‘Said there’s a store down here.’

Elrohir follows Elladan in the direction Gandalf nodded to. The side of the road is dusty, and the dust collects on his boots. Lupine sweep in a field in front of a sunken house. The windows are all shattered, and the shingles are dark with time. It leans towards a small stream that disappears underneath the road and comes out on the other side into the harbour.

The store is a long, low grey building with an asphalt lot in the front for the vehicles and a large sign on black posts. Elrohir follows Elladan through the doors, which open as they approach. Gandalf follows them, one hand on Elrohir’s back.

The store is cold inside, and the sharpness of the cold smells bitter. Elrohir scans the store. The lights are strange and flicker slightly; food is stored in materials he’s never seen and has no name for nor guesses for what they are. He runs his finger over a transparent case that isn’t glass. Gandalf’s hand is still on his back. He slouches low, looking weak and old. He carries a handful of leaves.

‘So they have notes?’ Elrohir says. ‘Notes of credit?’

‘Paper currency,’ Gandalf says.

‘That’s lighter,’ Elladan says.

They find food they won’t have to cook and take water. Gandalf pays with the leaves, which he turns to currency, and they head back with the provisions.

‘What do you think?’ Elladan asks Gandalf, now that they’re walking back the same path and everything isn’t as new.

‘I think,’ Gandalf says, and he looks up at the clear blue sky. A vehicle with wings glides through the air high, high above them. It gleams silver in the light and clouds trail behind it. Sound follows after.

Elrohir feels his heart quail. He reaches for his brother’s hand.

‘I think,’ Gandalf says. ‘That Sauron saw this, and he wanted it. I think we played with fire and burnt the whole world.’

‘Is he here?’

‘In the Ring, his power stays,’ Gandalf says. ‘Maybe he is not here. I cannot say.’

‘And are you angry with us,’ Elrohir says. ‘For bringing Saruman to Rivendell?’

‘I don’t think Saruman played a part in this,’ Gandalf said. ‘And if he did, I wouldn’t blame you.’

Elrohir fingers a lilac bush as they pass it.

‘We’re not going home,’ Elladan says.

Gandalf watches the flying thing above them.

‘No,’ he says. ‘We’re not.’


	5. I follow, I follow you

Gandalf stands under the sky. The stars are bright. Soon, Elrond will come to apologise. He will say, like he always says, that he didn’t mean what he said. He trusts the Valar. He didn’t mean to say that they aren’t fair, that they aren’t good. That he doesn’t love them.

Gandalf will understand. How could anyone hold it against him? Elrond of all people has a right to be bitter. And yet the bitterness will pass again, and Elrond will say softly, I didn’t mean it, for I was speaking from despair. He will sing a song to Elbereth and in the sweetness of the night he may get an answer to his prayer.

They’ve done this before.

They’ve done it all before.

But now Gandalf stands in an empty hay field, beneath a strange sky, and he’s empty. He’s empty in a way he’s never felt before. The emptiness spreads through his body, threatening to consume the rest of him, self-fashioned bones and skin. And they haven’t done this before.

Elrond touches his arm. Gandalf turns to him, and Elrond stares at him for a long while. His pupils are wide beneath the light of the full moon. His eyes look black, with just a trace of glinting silver.

‘Frodo’s asleep,’ Elrond says. ‘And Bilbo. They’re all mostly asleep. I talked to them.’

‘Thank you, dearest.’ Gandalf rests his hands on Elrond’s arm. He stares up at him. Elrond will apologise, and then he will cry. Gandalf knows him well. He will have to apologise too, for making Elrond talk to them, when he should have. That will be done quickly.

Elrond doesn’t speak. He looks up to the moon, and then he sinks forward.

‘I’m tired,’ he says. ‘I’m tired.’

He passes out in Gandalf’s arms. He pushed himself too far this time. Gandalf holds him. It’s getting cold fast. Clouds form in the sky.

Gandalf breathes out. ‘Fuck.’ Saruman looks at him. With Elrond passed out, Saruman can see now. ‘Fuck. Elladan.’

Elladan rips his tunic to blindfold Saruman. He goes to Elrond.

‘I’ll take him.’ He slips his arms around Elrond and carries him underneath the roof of the hay barn. He lies him on his cloak and lies beside him. Elrohir settles on the other side of Elrond. Gandalf looks to Maglor. Maglor stays underneath the trees, a distance from the others. Gandalf lets him be. He didn’t cause this, not really, and he probably won’t run away, unless he really is stupid.

But Maglor’s never been stupid. He’s been cruel and selfish, reckless and obliging, but not stupid.

Gandalf looks at Maglor again, and Maglor looks away.

Erestor lies awake. He is not on watch, and he would sleep if he could. He can’t though. Not with Maglor that close.

Maglor looks the same. That’s the problem. Maybe thinner, more transparent, but he looks the same. He has the same piercing eyes, the same high, hollow cheeks. He walks with the same noble grace, so unbefitting him.

He watches with those same long glances that left Erestor sick to his stomach as he lay on the ground, playing dead, among the corpses. The blood, he can smell it when he looks at Maglor. He can taste it in his mouth. He can see the blood pooled on the ground, the earth not accepting it, the bones, the guts beside his face.

He had been frozen at first, too shocked to move, and that had saved his life, as the soldier passed him over, thinking him dead. So dead he had played. He had taken a handful of blood from his mother’s leaking corpse and drawn it over his face, matted it in his hair. And then he’d lain still for hours while the birds circled in the sky above and the people shouted.

And Maglor took Elrond that day and somehow Elrond came to love him. Somehow in those years he spent Maglor’s captive, Maglor’s son, Elrond forgave the loss of his mother and the deaths of his people. But Erestor cannot forgive.

He survived the fall of Gondolin, but his father and sister did not, and he came to the Havens of Sirion for refuge with his mother and her brother, and he was going to try to be happy there. He was going to grieve and build a new life with what remained of his family. And then they came.

Erestor picks at his dark grey trousers, unravelling a thread along a seam. He knows Elrond sees Maglor sometimes. There aren’t many secrets that Elrond keeps from him. And it still hurt to see Maglor in Rivendell, to see the way that Elrond looked at him, eyes soft with love.

All Erestor can see is Maglor in armour on a foggy morning, helmet glittering by torch light, sword gleaming, standing over him, searching the dead bodies. One of his brothers was beside him, one of the ones with dark red hair, who later died that day. Maglor touched Erestor with his sword. Erestor didn’t breathe.

Maglor stands by the treeline in Elrond’s clothes. He’s weaker now, but he looks the same. He always does.

Glorfindel places his hand on Erestor’s shoulder. Erestor shoves it off.

‘Don’t.’

He doesn’t know what Glorfindel will say, but whatever it is, he doesn’t want to hear it.

‘Erestor,’ Glorfindel says.

He was right. He didn’t want to hear that.

‘Just leave me alone,’ Erestor says. Glorfindel was born in Valinor and then born again in Valinor. Glorfindel is golden and perfect and beautiful. He has clear, shining eyes, and he isn’t afraid of anything.

Erestor is afraid of the sick feeling rising in his stomach. He hates that he has to follow every thought in his head to whatever horrible end it might have, but he has to. He sees many lines where Maglor betrayed them and then betrays them again.

Betray.

As if he is on their side. He’s never been on any side but his own. Raising Elrond was nothing but selfishness to absolve him of his guilt. Then a trick he played on himself, thinking somehow he could gain pardon by whatever good Elrond and Elros came to.

He can’t.

Erestor didn’t breathe, and Maglor touched the sword to his face where the blood ran from his dark hair, and he said, ‘so young,’ as if he cared. Maglor turned away, and his brother left with him, and Erestor played dead on the ground until Gil-galad’s army came too late to save them.

Erestor got up off the ground, and his mother and uncle were dead. He went on Gil-galad’s ships an orphan and had to tell strangers who he was: Erestor, from Gondolin, aged thirty-seven years old.

The next time Erestor saw Elrond, Elrond was tall with burning eyes and the star of Fëanor tattooed on his hip. Grown too fast.

He hugged Erestor like he missed him. He put on Gil-galad’s heraldry, and swore his love and fealty to him. He marched underneath Gil-galad’s banner while his brother Elros marched beneath their father Eärendil’s.

He was called Elrond Peredhel, and he got too drunk on a too cold night and said he loved Maglor and Maedhros. He loved them so much. Gil-galad held him anyway.

Erestor hasn’t forgiven Maglor. He doesn’t know if it’s possible. Shouldn’t he have already? It was so long ago.

‘Erestor,’ Glorfindel says again.

This bitterness will hurt you more than it hurts him. Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. A grudge is a heavy thing to carry. Erestor, you have to forgive him.

Erestor curls his hand into a fist. He doesn’t want to hear it.

Glorfindel puts his arms around Erestor.

‘It isn’t good enough,’ Erestor says.

‘He offered to be alone forever,’ Glorfindel says. ‘Forever and ever, to save us. To save all of us.’

‘Well, I’m sorry,’ Erestor says. ‘It isn’t good enough.’

Glorfindel kisses his temple. ‘And what would be good enough?’

‘Nothing,’ Erestor says. He sucks his bottom lip in, draws in a long breath through his nose.

‘This hate hurts you more than it hurts him,’ Glorfindel says, settling on a platitude.

‘I will take whatever hurt it gives me,’ Erestor answers. ‘As long as it hurts him, no matter how small that hurt may be.’

‘Erestor,’ Glorfindel whispers, voice soothing, like he thinks he is somehow older and wiser.

‘No,’ Erestor says, too loudly. He drags his hand through his hair, and a ring catches on a braid. He’ll probably have to sell the ring anyway. They need a place to live. Frodo needs to recover, and they need to sort out what’s happened and what they will do next. They need a steady source of water. They need food. They need information.

Erestor slides his hands into his pockets. Elrond’s passed out, and he hopes no one else noticed. Elrond does that: pushes himself to the point of breaking. He hides it well though. They’re alike like that.

Boromir sits awake, back to the wall. He must be terrified. He doesn’t know anyone here. He was told to submit to the will of the elves and then dragged to a strange world, and he doesn’t know anyone here. Erestor smiles at him, but Boromir doesn’t smile back. The clouds fold over the moon.

* * *

The next day they find a place to camp in the woods closer to the town. They build lean-tos for shelter. There’s a creek for water. They dig a shallow fire pit. Gandalf takes Elladan and Elrohir into town again to get some supplies: food, rope, blankets. Then he takes Glorfindel and some of their jewellery to see what they can do about finding more permanent shelter.

‘It’s like camping,’ Bilbo says. He sits beside the creek, watching the water. The stones gleam underneath the swift current.

‘It is camping,’ Frodo answers gently. Bilbo snorts.

‘Always has to be right.’ He nudges Frodo’s arm with his elbow.

Frodo smiles at him, but he’s watching Saruman. Saruman who is still bound. Saruman who cannot say a word. He’s a traitor, and Elrond takes care of him, but somehow it hurts to watch him. Frodo cannot look away.

‘Power is an awful thing,’ Bilbo whispers. Frodo forces himself to watch the water instead of Saruman. ‘An awful, awful thing,’ Bilbo continues. ‘It feels… wonderful, but it’s strangling. Do you feel it, Frodo?’

Frodo smiles again, a tight smile that pulls at his skin. They gave him the ring back. He’s lost everything he’s ever known, and it doesn’t seem like he’ll get it back, but the only thing he feels is relief. They gave him the ring back.

‘I don’t think I know much about power,’ he answers.

The ring feels light against his bandages. It burnt him. Why did it burn him? He doesn’t know if Sauron’s gone. If he is, they might have saved their world. They’ll never know.

Elrond has explained that they’re in a state of shock. Maybe that’s why everything feels light and airy and only half real, less real than a dream, really. He feels like he’s floating somewhere else in a void of white, and he’s forcing himself back, but he’s losing reasons to stay.

‘Is Sauron dead?’ Bilbo asks him. He’s not one to mince words, but the bluntness of it makes Frodo shiver.

‘I’m yours now, Frodo,’ the Ring whispers. It hangs so lightly that Frodo could believe it.

A shadow by a birch tree shifts into one of Elrond’s sons. They’re strange creatures: the Peredhil. They seem to appear out of nothing, disappear if you aren’t looking straight at them. The ring feels heavy for a moment, until the son of Elrond moves farther away.

‘Sauron’s dead,’ Frodo says. ‘He’s dead, and he’s not coming back. It worked. We saved Middle-earth. We just can’t… we can’t have it. But it’s safe. It’s all right, dear Bilbo. You can rest now.’

Bilbo rests his head against Frodo’s shoulder.

‘It’s a different green.’ Bilbo smiles.

‘Yes,’ Frodo says. ‘It is.’

* * *

It’s dark. It’s dark. It’s dizzying dark. Mairon moves slowly. He is heavy. He feels like he is walking through wet cotton. He cannot see a thing. He cannot breathe. Is he walking, or is he floating? Is he alive, or is he dead? There is nothing but the dark, and the cold, pressing dampness. It is soft.

He is sinking.

He sinks lower into the threads around him. He trembles. It is cold, and it gets colder the lower he sinks. Is this death? Can he die?

‘Frodo,’ he says. It was the last word he heard before this silence. ‘Frodo, where are you?’

He slips lower. Maybe he will sink forever. Maybe this is his punishment. He earned it, didn’t he? He smiles. His body keeps sinking. He is heavy. He is too heavy.

A hand touches his hand. He starts at the touch of it, wet but warm, covered with the threads that he sinks in.

‘I am here,’ a thin voice says in the dark. It is high, and it breaks like the crack of ice. ‘I am here.’

‘Where are we?’ Mairon asks.

‘In the veil,’ the voice whispers. ‘I am here.’

The darkness turns turquoise.


	6. fraction

The evening comes with a sky as blue as the deepest sapphire. Elrond lies on the pine needles, watching the sky through the black branches above him. His fingers drum along his leg. He can’t keep his hand still. His ring is alive tonight, pulsing with new energy. This happens sometimes. He doesn’t know if it follows his mood, or if it has a mind of its own.

He draws in a breath of the cool air. The air tastes different here. It’s touched with poisoned gas at all times. It reminds him of the War of Wrath, of the War of the Last Alliance. He’s always hated that name: War of the Last Alliance. He’s always hoped that they named it too soon. The air isn’t as bad as it was then, but it’s not clean.

Frodo gets up from the log where he’s been watching the stars come out and paces around their little camp in a wide circle.

‘When is Gandalf coming back, do you think?’ he asks Estel.

‘Never,’ Estel says, which is probably funny to him.

Frodo scoffs. He bends to examine a blackberry bush. The woods is filled with them. The long vines grow upwards into the trees, making thorned arches high above them. But it’s too early for blackberries.

It’s getting cold again. Every night is cold, especially in the early hours of the morning. The elves don’t mind. But Elrond isn’t one of them.

Elrond wraps his scarf over his head. The wind is fast this evening. Saruman sits beside Elrond. He is bound and has been bound for a week now, though the ropes do not leave marks. Elrond takes off his gag to feed him. He is still not allowed to speak. This feels evil.

He notices the way the hobbits shy away from them. The way Boromir keeps to himself and only speaks when spoken to. Glóin shakes his head, scoffing, if Elrond catches his eye. They showed an evil hand, and they cannot take that back. And Gandalf left him with their questions. And Gandalf left him with them. Because Elrond is ‘better with people.’

Elrond takes off Saruman’s gag. There are no marks on his face. Elrond rubs gently at his cheeks and the sides of his mouth anyway. Saruman takes a deep breath, but he doesn’t say a word.

Elrond lifts a bottle of water to his lips. Saruman drinks. He stares at Elrond. Saruman has eyes like Gandalf’s: the iris is as black as the pupil. Even in bright light, they are black.

Sometimes Elrond thinks Elwing’s eyes were black too.

Elrond rips a small piece of bread and cheese and places it in Saruman’s mouth. Saruman chews it. He swallows. Elrond rips another piece.

It’s strange to see Saruman so quiet. He’s used to him talking. He loves to talk. He loves his voice. He loves sounding intelligent. He does, usually. Even when he said things Elrond didn’t want to hear.

‘You’re so kind, Elrond. You’d be easy to take advantage of.’

Spoken on a clear evening while the stars lit above them in a dark blue sky, and the river was running strong with melted snow.

‘I just want you to be careful, Elrond. I worry about you. I do. I don’t want to see you get hurt… again.’

Elrond ties the gag back in place. He helps Saruman lie down again underneath a blanket in one of the lean-tos. It is threatening to rain. The clouds sweep in dark grey over the evening.

Galadriel sits down beside Elrond. Elrond puts his hand over hers. She never liked Saruman. She was right. Galadriel trembles, just once, and pretends that she is cold. Elrond doesn’t speak, because if he brings up Celeborn or anyone else they left, he might cry.

‘You should sleep,’ Galadriel says.

Elrond shakes his head once.

‘Elrond, you need to sleep.’

She’s right. He does need to sleep. He’s always needed more sleep than elves. He can’t stay up for days at a time like they do. He gets sick. His head aches. Apparently Melian’s blood wasn’t enough to spare him this.

He pushed himself so far in the past few days. Maybe he’ll sleep and find rest. Maybe he will get caught again in nightmares. He lies down and watches the clouds form.

* * *

Boromir awakes in the night to a scream that chills his blood. He springs up, banging his head against the sloped roof of the lean-to.

‘It’s all right!’ one of Elrond’s sons calls. He is already by Elrond’s side.

‘What happened?’ Pippin asks, voice very high.

Aragorn pats Pippin’s hand.

‘It’s all right. It was just a nightmare.’

Boromir sits back down. His heart races. He’d thought someone was dying. He was already in an uneasy sleep, and he won’t be able to fall back into it. He wonders what Elrond dreamt. It would have to be something terrible to make him scream like that, but he must have plenty of nightmare fodder in his long memories.

‘Damn,’ Aragorn whispers as he lies back down near the hobbits.

Boromir half smiles at him. He tries not to think of terrible things, not now, in a storm in the dark of the night, surrounded by strangers, but terrible things are the only things he can think of. Things he’s heard of. Things he’s seen.

The hobbits are all huddled together, even closer now. They keep each other warm like that.

‘That was a blood curdling scream,’ Merry whispers to Frodo. ‘What do you suppose he dreamt about?’

‘Shh,’ Strider says. ‘He’s faced many dangers. Been in many wars. So he has bad dreams sometimes. I do too. We all have to live with something.’ He touches Merry’s head. ‘Now, sleep.’

‘Frodo,’ Pippin whispers.

‘Yes, Pip?’

‘I’m scared.’

‘We’re all scared.’

‘Even Gandalf?’

‘Even Gandalf, Pippin,’ Frodo says.

Boromir leans his head against wall. He’s alone. He’s really alone. His city is gone. His people are gone. He’ll never see Faramir again. And he doesn’t have anyone. He closes his eyes. He likes the hobbits, but he doesn’t know if they’re going to survive. They’re in shock. If they don’t break out of it, they might never be able to. He’s seen that before. You just lose your mind.

Boromir draws his cloak firmly around him. It’s a winter cloak, so he stays pretty warm, even in the damp coldness of the rain. He’s glad they’re not camping out in the winter with this little preparation.

Aragorn sits down beside him. Aragorn’s arm presses against his arm. He leans close to Boromir and speaks with a low voice.

‘How are you?’

Boromir shakes his head once. He swallows. He hadn’t expected that, and he doesn’t know how to answer. He’s not all right, but he can’t talk about it. He shakes his head again, buying time.

‘I don’t understand,’ he says.

‘About?’ Aragorn watches the hobbits. They’re inches from them. Boromir doesn’t know for sure if any of them understand Sindarin.

‘If the ring is that powerful, why can’t they get us back with it.’

‘I don’t know,’ Aragorn says. ‘I don’t know how it works. I don’t know anything right now. I don’t think any of us do.’

Boromir shifts, and Aragorn moves with him.

‘Elves are...’ Boromir says.

‘Elves are awake,’ Aragorn fills in.

‘Yeah.’ Boromir sucks his breath in. He lets it out again. He likes the warmth of Aragorn’s arm against his arm. He smiles at him. Aragorn smiles back.

The angle of the rain changes as the wind shifts. Aragorn leans over and closes the tarp over the opening. He ties it to the tree.

‘What are elves, Boromir?’ Legolas asks.

‘Awake,’ Aragorn says again.

Legolas huffs.

‘You’re not Boromir.’

‘Something else,’ Boromir says.

‘Oh, that’s vague.’

‘Sure.’ Boromir lies down.

‘The point was that maybe we’d be able to kill her in a couple of hundred years,’ Aragorn says. ‘They weren’t being selfish, if that’s what you think.’

Boromir doesn’t answer. He thinks if he does, he’ll start screaming and throwing fists, and it’s a very tight space, and he’s very outnumbered. He puts his hood up over his head and watches from behind the fur. Pippin’s asleep again. His eyes are closed. He has long, curled up lashes and a splash of freckles over his cheeks and nose. Boromir reaches out and touches his golden-brown curls. He’s just a child.

‘Mm,’ Pippin murmurs in his sleep.

Boromir closes his eyes. Maybe things will look better in the morning. He doesn’t think they will, but there’s always the chance. Maybe Mithrandir will come back with some news. Maybe it will all be a terrible dream, and he’ll wake again, alone, in the wilderness, trying to make it to Rivendell with word of another dream.

* * *

It rains for three days. Each day is longer than the next. Frodo tries to sleep through most of it, because there’s no sense going out into the cold rain and catching a cold. They tell stories and sing and try to get to know each other in polite ways, which means they don’t know each other at all.

There are two lean-tos, so they switch back and forth between them, trying not to get sick of their companions. The elves take walks in their elven cloaks, which seem to be completely water resistant, even in downpours. Besides, they don’t get sick.

There’s no personal space. There’s no privacy. Everyone is on top of everyone. Elves apparently can kick in their sleep. Frodo always thought they just lay quite still like statues or something. Elves smell like elves. It’s a very clean, natural smell that Frodo can’t quite place to anything, maybe moss or bark, but not quite. But he likes it. Dwarves also have a clean, natural smell that’s almost like warm stone. But he knew that already. Big people smell like hobbits, but they’re bigger, so they smell more.

Gimli and Glóin are both absolutely covered in tattoos. Strider has two, but Frodo didn’t get to see what they were, exactly, as Strider changed his shirt very quickly. Legolas has some birds and leaves, flowers, trees. He showed the hobbits when they asked. He also has a scar running almost the length of his spine that they didn’t ask about.

When the rain comes down straight, they open the entrance to the shelters to let in the fresh air. When the rain comes down slanted, they close them, and it smells strange because the tarps smell strange.

They eat. They wash. They tell more stories and sing more songs. Everyone is polite.

Elrond says it takes two weeks for the formality and politeness to stop. He tells Frodo this while he is cleaning his burn. If you start living with someone new, everyone stays on their best behaviour for two weeks (if they’re polite), but after two weeks, the illusion gets harder to maintain and you go back to being yourself as you usually are. Sometimes it’s less time, sometimes it’s more, but usually it’s two weeks.

It’s been a week and three days now. Frodo thinks he’s going to snap. His burn wound is much better, and he’s filled with an anger that he has nowhere to put. It’s a rage, building with every passing moment.

‘A new burn, if you will,’ Merry says when Frodo whispers it to him, though even whispering does little good. Everyone’s just pretending they can’t hear each other.

Frodo stares at Merry for a very long time.

‘Shut up.’

Merry laughs. It’s still raining. The rain pours across the tarp, much louder than the rain ever was on Frodo’s grassy roof. Frodo stretches out, and his foot shoves against Elladan’s leg. Frodo knows it’s Elladan because he’s been talking to Strider for the past hour.

Elladan stares down at Frodo’s foot. Frodo pulls his foot back.

‘Do you shampoo and condition your foot hair?’ Elladan asks. ‘I’ve always wondered.’

‘Yes,’ Frodo says. ‘I wash it.’

‘But do you wash it like the hair on your head?’ Elladan asks.

‘Yes,’ Frodo says. ‘What do you know of hobbits?’

Elladan shrugs. He reaches up and touches the branches above his head.

‘I’ve been to the Shire quite a few times. Well, mostly just on the borders. Patrolling.’

Frodo nods.

‘So what are you so angry about?’ Strider asks. ‘Are you going to start shouting? Throw a little fit?’

‘I’m going to start shouting if you talk to me like that,’ Frodo says.

‘Does get your voice get really high and squeaky?’ Strider smiles at him, positively evil.

‘Stop it, Estel,’ Elladan scolds. ‘Don’t be so rude.’

Aragorn tuts and shakes his head.

‘I’m just curious.’

‘No one is going to shout,’ Elladan says. He leans forward to look out the shelter.

‘I wouldn’t bet on that,’ Strider says.

Elladan rolls his eyes. He has his hands on Legolas’s feet while Legolas does sit-ups.

‘Let’s not shout,’ Glóin puts in. ‘It might knock down the lean-to.’

Legolas sits up again.

‘One fifty,’ Elladan counts.

‘Back to the rage,’ Strider said.

‘Let’s not.’ Frodo picks at some of the moss insulation.

Elladan holds Legolas’s feet with one hand for a moment so that he can flick Strider’s forehead.

‘Wow,’ Strider says.

The politeness might crack already. Frodo makes a face at Merry. Merry makes a face back. Polite protocol would have dictated that Strider didn’t hear them.

Strider doesn’t bother Frodo again though. He falls back into conversation with Elladan. Frodo pokes the tarp.

‘Seriously, it might fall over,’ Glóin says.

Frodo pulls his hand back. He wishes he had a game to play. Twenty questions wore itself out the first day of rainfall.

He looks into the other lean-to. Saruman seems to be asleep again. Galadriel’s gone again. Elrond braids Arwen’s hair. Erestor is still scribbling into his little notebook. Frodo isn’t sure what he’s been writing down, but he hopes it will help.

Frodo sighs. They’re all on edge, and they’ll be at each other’s throats soon. He hopes Gandalf will be back soon.

‘I should just put you all to sleep,’ Legolas says.

Aragorn shakes his head. ‘I’d like to see you try.’

Legolas scoffs. He sits up again.

‘Two hundred,’ says Elladan.

‘I could,’ Legolas sings. He snaps his fingers for a moment where his hands are crossed over his chest. ‘Poof!’

Gimli glares at him. Legolas glares back.

‘What?’ Legolas sits up again.

‘You can’t just spell everyone to sleep,’ Elladan says. ‘That’s—’

‘That’s rude,’ Legolas interrupts. ‘Yeah, yeah, I get it.’ He rolls his eyes.

‘I was going to say dangerous if we’re attacked,’ Elladan said. ‘But, sure, we can go with rude.’

‘They just complain so much,’ Legolas says, switching from Westron to Sindarin.

‘Time passes differently to them,’ Elladan answers quietly.

‘Fine.’ Legolas sits up. ‘Anyway, we haven’t seen anyone who would attack us.’

‘Not yet,’ says Strider.

They start to speak more quickly about different things, and Frodo can’t keep up.

‘We could play I spy,’ Pippin says.

‘Heavens.’ Merry laughs. ‘I didn’t know you were eight.’

‘I’m bored! I’m bored! I’m so bored, Merry!’ Pippin throws his hands up.

‘Careful there,’ Glóin says. ‘I’m not joking about this structure. Shout to loud or wave your hands around, and it might fall over.’

‘Oh my god,’ Legolas snaps. ‘It’s not going to fall over.’ He sits up and springs to his knees much too quickly and seizes one of the main poles and shakes it hard. Dirt, moss, and leaves rain down on everyone. ‘See!’ Legolas cries. ‘It’s sturdy! It’s sturdy! We didn’t make some flimsy little thing that’s going to collapse on everyone!’

‘Legolas!’ Strider grabs him. ‘Stop that now.’

It’s breaking. Not the lean-to, thank goodness, but the polite facade is falling fast now. Frodo bites his lip.

Aragorn pulls Legolas away from the pole. Legolas tosses his hair, but doesn’t protest beyond that.

Glóin brushes a clump of moss off his hair.

‘Well,’ he says.

‘Fucking elves,’ Gimli mutters.

‘Ai!’ Legolas cries.

Aragorn rolls Legolas onto his stomach on the ground.

‘Stay down.’

‘Estel,’ Arwen says.

Legolas pushes himself up quickly and shakes himself off.

‘Legolas, come here,’ Elrond says firmly. Legolas obeys and slips into the other lean-to. Merry whistles. Elrond shuts the tarp.

Bilbo laughs. He pats Glóin on the back.

‘Well, that’s elves for you!’

‘Truly.’ Glóin shakes his head and another patch of moss fall down. Bilbo laughs again.

‘Legolas,’ Elrond says. He doesn’t have the energy to scold him. ‘Why don’t you go scout.’

‘Mhm.’ Legolas grabs his cloak and weapons and slips out to patrol.

He needs to kill some energy. Elrond ties off the last braid for Arwen. He rubs her back.

‘I’m done.’

‘Thank you, Ada.’ Arwen settles close to Maglor. Maglor touches one of her braids with his left hand. He gives it a little tug.

Arwen smiles at him. Erestor looks up for a moment, but he goes back to writing.

They don’t have the space to discuss this, so they ignore it. And Erestor sleeps in the other lean-to so he doesn’t have to sleep near Maglor, and that’s fine. There’s not much else they can do. It’s fine. Elrond doesn’t want to get into it.

Galadriel comes back and hangs up her wet cloak on the branch of the wide tree both lean-tos are built to face. She sinks down near Arwen and inclines her head to Maglor very slightly to indicate that she has seen him and will now be ignoring him.

Again, they don’t have the space to deal with this. Not yet. They start now, and everything will fall apart.

Arwen takes Galadriel’s hand. She’s been crying again. Elrond’s heart aches for her. He lost Celebrían, and now she’s lost Celeborn. Elrond feels sick when he thinks about it. It always makes him sick. He puts his hand on his stomach, trying not to throw up. He pushes it down. He’ll deal with this later. He will have to deal with it later.

He will never see Celebrían again.

It’s not a weight he feels. It’s weightlessness. He’s floating, and he can’t pull himself down.

‘Snap me out of it,’ he whispers in Elrohir’s mind.

Elrohir pinches him hard, and Elrond pushes the thought away. He wishes there was more to do to. He needs to do something. He sits behind Erestor and starts working on his hair.

‘Mithrandir!’ Legolas cries in the woods. ‘Mithrandir!’

Elrond opens the tarp door.

‘Gandalf!’

Gandalf is there, and he smiles back at Elrond.

‘Food first,’ he says. ‘Then news.’


	7. satin

Gimli wakes on a blue blanket. There’s a lamp above him that looks like it might fall. The base doesn’t sit right against the ceiling. Gimli moves away from it again. He must have moved in his sleep. Glóin sleeps beside him. Gimli guesses he’s slept about four hours. It took him a long time to fall asleep. He lay on the blue blanket in the strange room for hours as the night deepened and then grew towards dawn. He fell asleep sometime when the room was grey with early morning.

The room is long and narrow. It has wide pine floorboards worn down where people have walked. There are dents in the wood where furniture stood. There’s a door to the outside on one side and doors to other rooms on the long walls. Two windows on the back wall both stand open.

Boromir sits awake, staring. He slumps over his drawn up legs.

‘Hey,’ Gimli whispers.

Boromir stirs and turns to him. His eyes are bloodshot and sunken.

‘You need to sleep,’ Gimli says softly.

Boromir turns his head away and rubs at his eyes and nose.

‘You need to sleep now,’ Gimli says again, more firmly.

‘I can’t.’ Boromir sucks his breath in. He licks his lip. ‘Fuck.’ He rubs at his shoulders.

‘Then lie down at least,’ Gimli says. He’s seen this before: The sitting, the staring. It’s like his childhood. He’s lost his home before. He was born without it. Everyone sat and stared. And now he’s lost his home again.

Boromir doesn’t lie down. He shuffles sideways along the wall a bit like he might, but then sits up straighter. Gimli gets up and goes to the door.

The sun is out. The sky is blue. Sparrows hop on the grass. There’s an overgrown flower garden beside the steps and then a stretch of green lawn that runs down to forsythia bushes, which reach to a thin line of beech trees, which block the road. There’s one big maple in the yard and a tall birch by the old barn. In the back of the house, there’s a bigger yard with a wide, disused garden and a small creek that cuts through the forest of quaking aspen and pine.

Gimli sighs. The hobbits are outside by the granite boulder that stands near the empty flagpole. They own it all now. Or Gandalf does. Maybe Glorfindel. It was his ring: a beautiful, heavy yellow diamond ring of dwarven make. The yellow was as vivid as a dandelion. A gem like that would be hard to find. It was surrounded by more yellow diamonds, and the ring was covered in white diamonds besides. They sold it and bought the house. Now they don’t have to worry about a place to stay, but it’s no one’s home.

Elrond comes in from one of the doors that leads to the kitchen. He kneels beside Boromir.

‘Drink this,’ he commands, holding out a small wooden cup. Boromir shakes his head, but Elrond doesn’t move away. He rests his hand on Boromir’s shoulder and stares at him until he takes the cup. Boromir smells it.

‘It’s just tea,’ Elrond says. ‘It will help you relax. You need to rest.’

Boromir drinks it all in two swallows. He hands the cup back to Elrond. Gimli pretends he isn’t watching.

‘Thank you,’ Boromir says. He rubs his finger in a dent in the floorboard. Elrond nods and stands. He leaves them. Boromir lies down against the wall. ‘I feel sick, Gimli,’ he says and then he’s asleep.

Gimli stands by the window by the door and waits for Glóin to wake. Aragorn comes outside from the kitchen and smokes by the flagpole. He talks to the hobbits. Gimli can’t hear what they’re saying. A brown panopoda moth flies past the window.

It’s very quiet here, quieter than where they were before in the woods where there was often the sound of a vehicle going by on the road. They’re farther out now, down a long dirt road lined with blackberry bushes, in the woods of quaking aspen. Seldom do they hear a vehicle passing on the dirt road, down the end of the long drive.

Gimli decides not to wait for Glóin to wake up. He slips out into the kitchen in stocking feet. Elrond is in the kitchen with Maglor and one of his sons. Gimli doesn’t know which son. Maglor has his arm around him.

‘Good morning,’ Elrond says. ‘Would you like breakfast?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

Elrond turns to cook pancakes. It’s so quiet. Gimli isn’t used to this sort of quiet. It seems unnatural. Butter sizzles sharply in the pan. There’s a hiss as Elrond pours the batter.

‘Did you sleep at all?’ Elrond’s son asks. ‘I’m Elrohir,’ he adds.

‘I slept some, thank you,’ Gimli answers.

Elrohir nods. He wraps both arms around Maglor and groans. Maglor kisses his temple.

‘Tired,’ Elrohir says. Maglor presses his face against his hair. He watches Gimli over Elrohir’s head.

Gimli doesn’t know what to say to him. He doesn’t fully understand the quarrels and tension among the elves.

‘Good morning,’ he says politely.

‘Good morning,’ Maglor answers.

‘Do you want eggs, Gimli?’ Elrond asks.

‘Yes, thank you.’

Gimli takes his breakfast out onto the porch off the kitchen. He sits on the top of the steps and eats slowly. A warm wind stirs the quaking aspen. Gimli breaks a yolk with his knife. The egg runs yellow over the pancakes.

Frodo wishes he felt settled. But there’s a horror growing inside of him he cannot push away. Sometimes, when he isn’t thinking, he imagines slicing off his fingers. It’s a violence growing inside him he’s never felt before. He doesn’t know who to tell, or if he should tell. Maybe it’s him.

Frodo sits on the grass in the sun watching Sam tut over the overgrown garden. Frodo runs his open hand over his leg. He wants to get rid of the tingling in his fingers and the image of blood running down. He looks around quickly to see if there’s anyone there who might be reading his mind. He doesn’t know who can or how close they have to be. Gandalf can, apparently, at least when he’s sleeping. He gets up and paces around the yard, looking at all the plants again.

He read once that you can snap a finger as easily as you can a carrot. He doesn’t know how true it is, but he fiddles with his fingers, imagining the snap of the bones. It would probably be harder to tear them off after he broke the bone. He shivers. He wishes he wasn’t thinking about this.

But he cut them off in his dream. He took a knife, and he sliced them off one after the other. Then he cried because he couldn’t hold the knife to cut off the others.

Frodo clears his throat, trying to get rid of the bad taste in it. He runs his hand over his forehead. He’s sweating. The sun is out, but it isn’t that hot yet.

‘It must have been very beautiful once,’ Bilbo says. He’s come up so quietly near Frodo that Frodo hadn’t noticed him. ‘It’s still got nice roots. Just needs some love. Will be a beautiful garden, come fall, with our Sam here. And the house. Well, I don’t go much for this many stories, three if you count the attic, and the rooms should be smaller but with more of them for sorting things easier, but it’s got nice light. I like the light flow through the house. Didn’t get that at Bag End, with all the windows on one side.’

‘Yes, it’s nice.’

Bilbo takes Frodo’s arm. The house has white siding and a red door. The paint is all chipped along the walls and on the door.

‘We should paint the door soon, at least,’ Bilbo says. ‘A nice green, I think, yes?’

‘That would be lovely.’

The door is red, but it’s brighter than blood. Underneath the red, it is grey. Underneath the white paint, the siding is grey too.

‘I’m just glad we’re out of that camp,’ Bilbo says. ‘With everyone all trapped together, getting on each other’s nerves, and I’m too old to be camping out like that.’

‘It was a bit romantic though,’ Frodo says.

Bilbo scoffs. ‘Romantic?’

‘The closeness,’ Frodo says. ‘And everyone sharing everything: blankets and dishes. All wild and adventurous. Like being in your book: elves and dwarves and wizards! And we’re all together and big people too! It was a bit romantic.’

‘That’s a way to keep your spirits up.’ Bilbo smiles at him. ‘Did you fall in love on your romantic adventure?’

‘No,’ Frodo says. ‘But it was nice knowing it was a possibility.’

Bilbo pats his wrist.

‘Right. Good, good. Well, it will all be easier for you. You’re young. You can get used to a new place, yes? I’m old and tired and, well, not ready for a new adventure, I’m afraid.’

Frodo wraps his arms around Bilbo. For a moment, he sees blood running down from under his hands where he holds him.

‘Do you see it?’ Frodo asks him.

‘See what?’ Bilbo looks around the yard.

‘There was a yellow butterfly.’

Bilbo looks for the butterfly. He spots one on the clovers.

‘There. Well, we had those in the Shire.’

‘Mmm, it’s a little bit of home.’

‘What do we do now?’ Maglor asks. He’s in one of the upstairs bedrooms, door shut, with Elrond and his children. The room is small with white wallpaper with little yellow flowers on the three walls and a pine board floor and one slanted ceiling.

‘I don’t know,’ Elrond says.

The room is warm and stuffy with the door closed. The windows are open, but there is only occasional wind. The air smells of warm wood and dust.

‘It will take a lot of work for us to live here,’ Arwen says. ‘And for those who won’t die...’

Elrond looks up at the ceiling.

They’re in an impossible situation. Maglor keeps his arm around Elrond. The mortals will die. That’s a fact. They will live the rest of their lives here, separated from everyone they knew, and then die. That will only leave the elves, the half-elves, and the wizards. Maglor has no hope of their return. He’s seen these worlds open before. He’s seen birds and hares and even a deer disappear into them. He has never seen anything return.

So the mortals will die. And Arwen may die, but he’s starting to think she might change her mind. And the rest of them will live. They may find other elves, but it’s not likely. And there will be the Ring. And there will be Sauron. What can they do to destroy him now? This was a mistake.

‘I don’t want to think about it right now,’ Elrond says. ‘I was up all night talking to Gandalf. And I don’t want to. I don’t want to deal with it. I’m sorry. I can’t. I’ve had enough of this: what we will and won’t do. All the possibilities. It’s all going back to the same thing, and I don’t want to deal with it. I’m tired.’

‘Shh, it’s all right, Elrond,’ Maglor says. ‘We won’t talk about it right now. You can rest.’

Elrond closes his eyes. It was a mistake. Maglor spins a glass bead braided into Elrond’s hair. Elrond wasn’t going to let him go away like that. He’d read it in Elrond’s mind and eyes. He wouldn’t have let him be alone forever, even if everyone had voted against him. Maglor would have had to fight him. It would have been long and drawn-out. But the Ring had another plan. Not Saruman. Not him.

The Ring.

Maglor had felt the will of It strike him through and turn him satin. He swallows, but the metallic taste of the memory won’t leave him. He’d seen eyes like gold. The voice was like music, and it stretched around him, cold as dew, warm as lava. It was reaching. It was prying. It was gold against marble and the sharp crack of a mirror breaking. Maglor rubs at his throat and his face, but it does not leave him. If he could reach into his throat, he’d pull out a sparrow.

‘I heard it too,’ Elrond says. He’s always been able to read through Maglor’s thoughts or feelings without Maglor knowing. ‘And the eyes. His eyes. I could never forget his eyes.’

Elladan rests his hand on Elrond’s leg.

‘Ada.’

‘They were like gold,’ Elrond says. ‘Like pure gold. And they watched you like they knew everything you had ever done and every thought you had ever had and everything you would ever do or want to do. His voice was beautiful, like music in everything he said. Like a song, always a song, but a song you could listen to forever without growing tired. He was so beautiful. And he said everything you wanted to hear. He said every single thing I wanted to hear. So of course I didn’t trust him. And Gil-galad didn’t either, because he was like me.

‘But I could never forget his eyes. And I saw them again, when he was still beautiful, and he had… When he had…’

‘You don’t have to say it,’ Maglor says. ‘It’s all right. We know.’

Elrond looks up at him. There’s blood beneath his fingers.

‘It was cruel.’ His voice is flat and small. His eyes are like the sea emptied.

Something broke in Elrond when he saw Celebrimbor’s body. It’s something that will never heal. Maglor knows this. Elrond uncurls his fingers. His nails have cut his palm. He stands.

‘I need to wash my hands.’

‘So Sauron’s here?’ Elrohir says when Elrond has left. He lies down fully on the floor, bare legs stretched out in the sunlight. He sounds too casual. But he’s used to the evil parts of the world and living with danger.

‘Yes,’ Maglor answers. ‘We both saw him.’

Elrohir closes his eyes. ‘Can we destroy the ring without the fucking mountain?’

‘Maybe we’ll find the mountain.’ Arwen stands and looks out the window. ‘Or a mountain.’

Elrohir shrugs.

Maglor looks at Elladan. Elladan is quiet. Maglor wonders why Erestor voted that he not take the Ring alone into an empty world. If it was out of concern for him, or if he just didn’t trust him, even in atonement. Elladan voted that he should. Somehow that surprised him. Elladan always loved him.

But he loves Elrond more. He would do anything for him. Maglor’s seen that sort of love before. It can be destructive. It can ruin the world. It has. Maglor wonders if Elrond knows. Of course he knows. Elrond knows the hearts of everyone. He’s impossible to hide from.

Elladan looks over at him finally.

‘I hope you know that I love you,’ he says softly.

‘And I you,’ Maglor answers.

Dust floats down through the sunlight.


	8. always known you

_third age, year 3018_

Faramir wakes sobbing with no tears again, hands gripping at his arms, nails in his skin. The night was short, and the chains wrapped around his body feel colder now against his skin, which is damp with sweat.

‘Please, water,’ he croaks. ‘Please. I need water.’ He doesn’t have enough energy to ask again, and his throat is too dry. It feels cracked. He moans once, but it hurts too much. He turns his head and licks at his damp skin with a dry tongue.

An orc bends over him. Orcs are hideous in a way that is hard to describe. They were elves, and you can see it. They look like elves, don’t they? Too small elf-bones, too pointed elf-ears, too bright elf-eyes. Long hair bound in braids. But there’s something to them that makes them hideous. There is something in them horrible. Faramir cannot say what it is.

The orc looks down at him with eyes slightly too big (designed for night, for shadows?) Wide pupils, azure blue irises, eyes blood shot (too much sun.) The orc smiles over sharp teeth.

He touches Faramir gently, and Faramir’s stomach twists at the touch, but he doesn’t pull away. Water. He needs water. Maybe the orc will give him some if he stays still.

‘Wasting all your water on night fears,’ the orc says with a voice that is half a voice and half a voice’s ghost.

(What did Melkor do to the elves to make these? Were they half-elf half-god? Did he cross them with himself or with lesser gods? With forest shadows? Fire demons? What spirits run through them?)

Faramir swallows on a dry throat. The swallow is like a knife running down him.

The orc smiles again. Faramir can see the veins running green over his face. His hair falls across Faramir, straw blonde and tied with leather. His fingers are just too long, slightly webbed where they meet. He crouches over Faramir, legs drawn up to his chest, folding so easily. (Elves do that too.)

Faramir shivers. He is used to orcs, not used to elves. He’s met two. He thought they were orcs at first (they look like orcs). But they spoke Sindarin and held their hands up in surrender and when he got close, they were different. He couldn’t put his finger on the difference though.

But they were beautiful. Beautiful and he kept staring even though he didn’t mean to. Beautiful but still there was something wrong with them to his eyes. They were strange, their pupils too wide, their fingers just too long, with those narrow bones, and their leaf ears, and the wide stare of their too bright eyes. In the night, they glowed, but no one else had seen.

He lay with one of them. He couldn’t sleep, so he went to the bed of the one with honey amber hair, where he lay in the dark, glowing softly, and touched his hair while he slept. The elf woke and Faramir kissed him, and the elf drew back his blanket and Faramir slipped under. And they kissed and the elf touched him until he came on his hand, on his leg, but he didn’t let Faramir touch him, so Faramir left back to his own bed, and in the morning the elves went on.

Water dribbles across Faramir’s face, some on his cheeks, some in his mouth. He feels it sink into his dry mouth like his flesh is soil. Then the flask is held to his lips, and he can drink, and each swallow hurts less than the last.

‘So thirsty,’ the orc says, bare, webbed feet moving without sound against the stone floor. ‘Thirsty, thirsty, thirsty.’

‘What do you dream?’

Faramir dreams of Boromir lying in a dark field while metal ships with silver wings sail over his head, blinking red in the light. Boromir walking beside Gandalf while wires buzzing with lightning gleam over them. Boromir standing beside a man with hair like dusk who gently speaks Faramir’s name. Faramir knows it is Elrond. He’s dreamt of Elrond since he was a child. Sometimes Elrond would cradle him in his arms. Sometimes he would even kiss him. Now he dreams of Boromir standing beside Elrond while ships hang over their heads in a sky where strange stars spin.

‘I don’t remember,’ Faramir says.

* * *

_common era, year 2018_

Elrond buttons Frodo’s shirt up over the fresh bandages. The chain gleams bright silver over Frodo’s throat. The ring hangs down Frodo’s back. Frodo moves it back to his chest beneath his shirt after it has been buttoned.

‘Have you had any strange dreams? Or thoughts?’ Elrond asks.

Frodo shrugs a little. He turns away.

‘I’ve noticed you staring at me,’ Elrond says. He turns his back on Frodo to wash his hands. Lots of people stare at him. Usually he knows why. Sometimes they tell him. ‘Is there a reason for that?’ Frodo frowns. Elrond watches him in the mirror. ‘Is there something you want to talk about, Frodo?’

‘No.’

‘All right.’ Elrond dries his hands. ‘You can talk to me about anything. I won’t judge you.’

‘I’m fine, thank you,’ Frodo says, a bit curtly. He gets up. ‘Thank you for,’ he waves his hand over his chest, ‘everything,’ and leaves the bathroom.

Elrond knows he’s had strange thoughts, but there’s nothing he can do if Frodo won’t talk about it. He goes out to the porch. Elladan and Estel sit close together on the top of the stairs. Elrond stands by the door. He twists his hair around his fingers until it pulls hard at his scalp. Elladan jumps up and goes to him.

‘We’re going to need to get supplies again soon,’ Elrond says. ‘More substantial supplies.’ He rests his hand on Elladan’s back. ‘And furniture.’

Arwen and Elrohir are by the barn examining the wood. It’s been neglected. There is some rot. It will spread if they don’t stop it.

‘Estel,’ Elrond says. ‘How is Boromir?’

Estel stretches his long legs.

‘Not good.’

‘Have you been talking to him?’ Elrond asks. Estel is the person Boromir would be most likely to respond to.

‘Yeah.’ Estel gets up. He stands beside Elrond, looking down at him, and strokes the top of his head. Elrond wrinkles his nose.

‘Estel.’

Estel smiles slyly. He’s been taller than Elrond since he was sixteen. Elrond rests his hand on Estel’s arm.

‘Make sure he won’t do anything rash.’

‘Of course.’

Elrond puts his arms around Elladan and leans against the house. The siding is warm from the sun.

‘And keep an eye on Frodo,’ he adds.

‘I do,’ Estel says and then makes his way across the yard to examine the barn.

‘We need furniture,’ Elrond says. Elladan nods. ‘And clothing. More blankets. Dishes.’ Elladan kisses him.

‘Yes, Elrond.’

‘I wish I hadn’t been so mean to Eärendil,’ Elrond says.

‘You weren’t mean to him.’

‘I was. I was… harsh.’

‘He didn’t mind,’ Elladan said. ‘He won’t hold it against you. He loves you.’

‘I just… I just remembered standing by the sea waiting for him to come back, and my mother saying she didn’t know when. She didn’t know. And he saved the world, and he saved me and Elros, but I missed him.’

‘Ada,’ Elladan says. ‘Don’t spiral. He loves you. They both did. And what is done is done. He loves you. He did everything to save you. Maybe he can never be your father, but you do love him, and he knows that, and that is what is important.’

‘But I...’

‘It would have been different if he were to stay,’ Elladan says. ‘You both knew it.’

Elrond squeezes Elladan tighter. Elladan always says the right things.

‘Thank you for your comfort, my love.’

Elladan holds Elrond’s arms around him. He watches his siblings.

‘I should learn to drive,’ he says.

‘Yes, me too.’

Elladan tilts his head to one side. His hair sweeps across his face and catches on his nose and cheekbone.

‘I feel sad.’

‘And I.’

Elladan sucks on the inside of his cheek.

‘What shall we do about Saruman?’ Elrond asks. ‘We can’t just keep him tied up forever, can we?’

‘I don’t know what we do about Saruman,’ Elladan says. ‘Shall we make the barn for him, perhaps? Give him his own space to move around where he can’t talk to the others?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Do you think he’s dangerous?’ Elladan asks.

‘I don’t know.’

Elladan turns to face Elrond. His eyes are narrowed.

‘Elrond.’

‘Yes?’

‘You forgive too easily.’

Elrond shakes his head.

‘I don’t forgive him.’

‘But you still love him.’

‘But I still love him.’

Elladan lets out a soft sigh.

‘They don’t understand,’ Elrond says. ‘He was such a dear friend to me. And I was his closest friend. I was his closest friend, my love. And he… And I…’ Elrond can’t finish his thoughts today. He doesn’t want to finish them. He watches the grass as it bends in the wind, turning different shades of green and then turning back again. He watches Glorfindel cross the yard with a handful of daisies for the kitchen. Frodo, Sam, and Bilbo talking beneath a tree on a blanket. A squirrel run up the birch and scare a chickadee into flight.

He grips at Elladan because if he doesn’t he’s going to fall through the porch and into the ground, and it will swallow him whole and bury him silent ten feet in the ground. Elladan holds him.

Elrond touches his hip where the star of Fëanor still stands against his skin. Elros got it tattooed on the nape of his neck, centred, where it was visible when he wore his hair pulled up. Elrond chose his hip because he could keep it covered most of the time and he was young and thought the placement sexy.

Elros got more tattoos after, some that Elrond drew, ships and stars and curling waves. A crown, a tree, birds, fish, an octopus curled over his leg. Elrond never did and sometimes he let his tattoo fade for long years, but he always had it redone again.

Maglor comes out, almost completely silent on bare feet. He stands beside them, leaning against the house in a patch of sunlight. It gleams golden on his skin, and the burns on his hand stand out whiter.

Glorfindel waves at Maglor, smiling. Maglor lifts his left hand in a wave back.

‘We’re going to learn to drive,’ Elladan says.

‘Ah.’ Maglor leans his head back against the house. He closes his eyes. His black lashes look red in the setting sunlight.

Elrond takes his hand. He always misses Maglor when he leaves him. But he never stays. He gets agitated. He starts to scratch at himself and pull at his hair. He looks around the cabin Elrond built for him in Rivendell so he could have peace and be alone when he needed, and he says, ‘I’m sorry,’ and then he leaves again.

(They all leave.)

‘You won’t find it,’ Glorfindel would say as Maglor packs food and his knife into a leather bag and reaches for the new cloak Elrond had made for him.

‘I’m not looking for it,’ Maglor would answer.

‘The sea took it,’ Glorfindel would still say. ‘It won’t come back.’

And Maglor would say, ‘I’m not looking for it,’ with teeth gritted, and Elrond would make Glorfindel leave.

‘It’s not good for him,’ Glorfindel would say after, when Maglor was on his way to do whatever he needed to do (not search for the Silmaril on the long coasts.)

‘And it’s not your choice to make for him,’ Elrond would answer.

‘But maybe someday he will listen to reason.’

Reason.

Maglor has reasons. (Too many.) Elrond never said that though. He would just pray to Elbereth and Eärendil to watch Maglor wherever he might stray. And to guide him home. Maglor always came home.

But he always left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I haven't been writing but I'm also like two cm away from a mental breakdown, tragically


	9. it gets dark, it gets lonely

‘Why didn’t you kill me?’

Galadriel knows that it’s Maglor who’s entered before he speaks. She knew he was coming too. She also knew he was going to ask that, but she still hasn’t prepared an answer.

‘It was so long ago, Maglor,’ she says. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been hung up on it.’

She doesn’t turn to him. She sits on the floor with papers in front of her dotted with stars in black ink.

‘You could have killed me,’ he says.

‘Yes.’

She could have killed him. She was there at Sirion, and she was the better soldier. She had her sword to him. She doesn’t think about it often. Her sword in the sunlight. His hair across his face, torn from its braids. He’d lost his helm. And she could have killed him.

But she didn’t.

Maglor stops in her shadow. It is close to evening. Her shadow is long over the wooden floor.

She should have killed him. He was killing innocent people for that fucking jewel. The jewel that Elwing would not hand over because she was young, because Eärendil wasn’t there, because it was holy. So they came, and she had her sword to Maglor, and she should have killed him, but she couldn’t, because his eyes were still the same as when he’d sung above her cradle all those centuries ago.

‘What,’ she says, ‘could you possibly want from me?’

‘You—‘ he starts.

‘I couldn’t kill my cousin,’ she says. ‘Does that make me such a bad person? I couldn’t kill you, and you couldn’t kill me either. So neither of us killed each other, and here we are.’

Maglor sits on the floor by her side but three arms’ length away. She can’t reach him, and he can’t reach her.

He ran from her. He ran after she let him go. She thought then about chasing after him, killing him. It was a regret swelling already in her heart, but she couldn’t do it. And then, she never saw him again.

‘I know Elrond loves you,’ she says. ‘But Elrond loves a lot of people. Sometimes it’s a mistake, like with Saruman.’

‘Is it a mistake with me?’

‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘Is it?’

‘Are you trying to find a way home?’ He nods at her star maps.

She knows what home he speaks of. But Aman is not here. It can’t be.

‘You studied under Melian,’ he says.

‘Why do you keep saying things we both know, Maglor?’

‘Sorry.’

Galadriel watches the Evening Star make its way along the orange horizon.

‘Is that Eärendil?’ Maglor asks. ‘Or just a star?’

‘Elrond says it’s Eärendil. I guess he would know.’

‘Maybe he will come down again and give us an idea of what we should do.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Artanis?’

‘Galadriel.’

‘What?’

‘My name is Galadriel.’

‘Galadriel.’ Maglor shifts. His hair falls over his face. ‘Did you want It? Really want It?’

Did she want It? Really want It? Take the Ring and break her best friend’s mind, her son’s mind, shape them both around to her will until they were extensions of herself and not the people she had loved? But then they would be her so maybe she would still love them. Maybe love them more if her love was always selfish and self-centred, running around in thick coils that ensnared her and only her.

Maybe she could love like that and it would be a stronger love because they would never disagree with her and she would never have to argue. Maybe Elrond would no longer drive her mad with the soft way words roll on his tongue. And that deep sorrow in his eyes would lift so she didn’t have to feel her heart tighten when she looked at him because he was so beautiful and utterly tragic.

The problem with Elrond was that she couldn’t understand him. He was agonisingly forgiving. Sweet and soft in ways that she couldn’t be. Of course he wouldn’t even think of taking the Ring. Of course it made him sick. Didn’t everything make him sick though? Sick and sad and trembling.

And Gandalf the opposite. Everything making him angry. He jumped and leapt and fire burnt in his eyes. See the Ring of Fire suited him better than it ever suited Círdan. Because a fire was strong in him, and he never made her guilty and sad to look at. That’s why she loved him more than Elrond. That was selfish too. How she loved Elrond but didn’t love the creeping sorrow in him and the darkness that lingered in his starry eyes.

Melian had it too, that darkness. But she had not yet had that sort of sorrow. And when the sorrow did come it broke her so completely that she left everyone she had loved. Galadriel’s hand tightens into a fist. She should have done more, but the fighting was hopeless, and she wanted to live. So, really, letting Maglor live was barely a sin.

‘No,’ she says. ‘I just want to go home.’

* * *

Legolas wakes in the early morning. A mist hangs over the yard, silver-gold in the morning sun. Legolas rolls away from Elladan and Elrohir, who lie close together, still asleep, and gets up carefully. He slips out of the room and down the stairs. He slides on his moccasins and goes out into the mist.

It is quiet. The mist muffles the sounds in the grass. Birds sing. Legolas’s fingers brush against the bark of the birch tree as he passes it. He follows the side of the yard along the raspberry bushes and heads up into the woods.

The woods are young and the under-brush high. Legolas ducks beneath a fallen aspen that is caught in the branches of a pine. He follows a stream north through fern and carpeting brambles.

He follows the stream past granite rocks jutting up from the pine needle covered ground, past a patch of cedar trees whose scent is strong in the damp morning. He follows it through the young wood until he reaches a clear cutting where the trees have all been felled and then he turns and heads home.

‘Morning, Aragorn,’ Legolas says coming to a halt beside Aragorn, who sits on the rock in the yard, smoking.

‘Did you go to the lake?’ Aragorn asks.

‘No, I went north.’ Legolas sits down next to him, upwind of the smoke. He draws one knee up to his chest and rests his chin on it. Aragorn’s hair blows over his face. The mist has cleared. ‘Are you lonely?’ Legolas asks.

Aragorn cranes his neck back. He looks at Legolas out of the corner of his eye.

‘You don’t have to answer.’ Legolas wraps both arms around his leg.

‘It’s not all bad,’ Aragorn says. ‘Haven’t seen any orcs, right? And no giant spiders, though I suppose that poses a problem for making your silk.’

‘Mmm. I was never a weaver.’ Legolas watches the leaves shake in the wind. If he focuses on the leaves, on just the leaves, it looks like home.

‘And you won’t be alone,’ Aragorn says.

Legolas pushes back his cuticles. His hair falls over his face and he lets it cover him. He wants a curtain now, a shield. He feels too exposed though he doesn’t know why. Aragorn places a hand gently on his back.

Legolas hums. It’s an old song, a melody made before the sun. It has had many words over many years, but the melody is the same. His parents taught it to him, and he knows it well enough that there is no world in which he could forget it. Maybe someday he will write new words.

* * *

‘We’re going to need a car,’ Gandalf says. He sits close to Elrond on the kitchen floor, coffee cup resting on his knee. The only other person in the kitchen is Frodo, who is waiting for the next coffee pot to brew.

‘Mhm,’ Elrond says. ‘I think I’ll be good at driving. I was good with ships. They look similar?’

‘Yes,’ Gandalf says. ‘Do you want to come with me to town?’

‘Oh, yes. My sons will want to, of course.’

‘And then maybe we can take Aragorn, and that should be enough people.’

Frodo glances at them over his shoulder but doesn’t comment. Gandalf isn’t paying enough attention to him to know how much of the conversation he is following.

‘Should we leave Galadriel alone with Curunír?’ Elrond asks.

‘Mmm.’ Gandalf sips his coffee. ‘I think they’ll do fine.’

‘But should we really both go?’ Elrond asks.

‘We can leave Glorfindel here.’

‘Hmm.’ Elrond adds sugar to his coffee.

‘Would Arwen want to come?’ Gandalf asks.

‘Doubtful. I’ll ask her, but she’ll probably want to stay with Galadriel.’

‘I don’t want to go,’ Arwen says from the door. Elrond holds his arm out to her. She comes and curls up on his lap, head against his chest.

‘You spoil them,’ Gandalf says. Arwen wrinkles her nose at him. ‘You’re spoiled,’ Gandalf says, eyes twinkling.

‘Mhm,’ Elrond says. He strokes her hair. Arwen takes Elrond’s coffee and drinks it slowly. Elrond watches her. ‘My children are brats, Gandalf.’

‘It’s your fault.’

‘Absolutely not,’ Elrond murmurs. Arwen keeps drinking his coffee.

Aragorn comes in and sinks down near Gandalf. He wraps an arm around him.

‘Humph,’ Gandalf mutters.

‘Don’t be grumpy,’ Aragorn says.

Gandalf rubs his arm.

‘I don’t have any friends.’

‘That’s completely untrue,’ Aragorn says. ‘You have me.’

‘And me,’ Elrond says.

‘No friends,’ Gandalf says firmly.

‘You have me!’ Arwen protests.

‘No,’ Gandalf says. ‘Absolutely not.’

‘Stop.’ Aragorn shakes his head.

‘Bilbo is my only friend,’ Gandalf decides.

‘Hey!’ Frodo cries. He turns from fixing a coffee to shoot Gandalf a sharp look.

‘I don’t even know you,’ Gandalf says.

‘Excuse me,’ Frodo stands at his his full height. ‘You have eaten more of my food than I care to remember.’ Elrond laughs. ‘And I’m sure Elrond feels the same.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Elrond agrees. ‘Definitely.’

Gandalf chuckles and rubs Aragorn’s arm.

‘You’re a bad friend, Gandalf,’ Aragorn says.

‘But we knew that,’ Elrond puts in. Gandalf pinches his cheek.

‘Brat.’

‘Goodness,’ Frodo says.

‘What? I can’t pinch the Lord of Rivendell’s very cute cheek?’ Gandalf chuckles.

‘No, no, pinch all you want,’ Frodo says. He waves his hand. ‘I’m not getting involved.’

Aragorn laughs.

‘You just told Gandalf to pinch Elrond. That’s getting involved.’

‘Really, I didn’t,’ Frodo says. ‘That was not my intention at all.’

‘You just said it though,’ Arwen says, and her eyes shine.

‘Who knows what I just said.’ Frodo hurriedly stirs his coffee.

‘Literally everyone in this room knows what you just said,’ Aragorn puts in. ‘I guess he doesn’t love you, Ada.’

Elrond nods gravely.

‘Ada?’ Frodo says.

‘Oh, we did not explain that,’ Aragorn says after a moment.

Gandalf starts laughing. He can’t help it. He’s going to wake the rest of the house with it, but it comes out all like a thunderstorm.

‘Good luck explaining that!’

‘Estel is my foster son,’ Elrond says calmly. ‘His father died when he was young, and his mother and I raised him together. Technically, Arwen is his foster sister, but they did not meet until he was grown.’

‘She’s not my sister,’ Aragorn says.

‘She’s your foster sister,’ Elrond says. ‘And I am your foster father, and my sons are your foster brothers.’

‘She’s still not my sister,’ Aragorn says quickly.

Elrond tilts his head.

‘Technically, she is.’

Gandalf tries not to laugh because Frodo is going through several stages of grief in much too fast succession.

‘She’s also his very distant cousin,’ Elrond says. ‘As his ancestor, Elros, was my twin brother.’

‘So distant we’re not even related,’ Aragorn says.

‘Technically, we are related,’ Arwen says. ‘Distantly, and through our father.’

‘He’s not our father,’ Aragorn says.

‘Well, he’s your foster father,’ Arwen says.

‘You just called him Ada,’ Gandalf adds.

Frodo makes a face and sips his coffee and makes another face.

‘Well, all right,’ he says. ‘That’s, um, interesting.’

‘You’re still not my sister,’ Aragorn says.

‘No, well, technically I am your sister,’ Arwen says. She finishes Elrond’s coffee.

‘That’s fine, I got it.’ Frodo pulls another face. ‘Um, I’m just going to… Go?’

‘Yes, yes, you can go,’ Gandalf says, and Frodo hurries off as fast as he can manage, leaving his coffee behind.

‘I think we scared him,’ Elrond says.

‘You scarred his good hobbit sensibilities,’ Gandalf says. ‘And with good reason. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.’ Elrond rolls his eyes. ‘Brat.’ Gandalf pinches his cheek again. ‘Teach your children better.’

‘No.’

‘Be ashamed of yourselves.’

‘No.’

‘I think you’ve scarred him.’

‘I really don’t think he’s that sensitive,’ Aragorn says. ‘Though maybe we’d be run out of the Shire with pitchforks and torches. What do you think?’

‘It’s a definite possibility,’ Gandalf says after a moment of thought.

‘Hey, Frodo!’ Aragorn calls to Frodo, who has come back in to collect his coffee. ‘Would we be run out of the Shire?’

‘No comment.’


	10. consequence

The bus is loud and dirty, but that’s what Elrond had expected. He sits beside Elladan as the trees flash by them, green and green and green and then grey. There’s something about the speed that makes him feel like he is falling. But he can’t remember the last time he fell from that high that the world looked like this. He had wings then. He doesn’t always have wings. 

Elladan sits close to the window with his fingers curled around Elrond’s hand. He’s so protective of Elrond. It started when he was a child, and he saw Elrond crying in the Hall of Fire. He brought him tea and flowers. He stood beside him like a guard. 

Elrond holds him closer, putting an arm around him. Elladan’s head bumps against his shoulder. The roads aren’t well maintained. Maybe the country doesn’t have much money. 

It’s raining, but it’s the kind of rain that comes in fast, catching the light of the sun where the clouds break, and then fades away again, leaving golden streaks on the glass. 

Somehow he feels like he’s done this before, even though he never has. But still it feels familiar, and he thinks that maybe he’s ridden this bus in this rain down this road in a dream or a vision so long ago he put it out of memory when it came to no consequence. 

The bus pulls up to a small city with flat buildings that rarely rise higher than two stories. It looks bleak even beneath the sun, and bleaker when the clouds glide back over the white haze that is the sun in the dull blue sky. 

They walk. Garbage skitters in the wind over the cracked pavement. All the buildings are grey or white or a faded beige, and the signs near them are higher and hold themselves with bright colours and words Elrond cannot read. 

He feels ill in that dizzy, faint way that reminds him he could have been mortal, and he takes Elladan’s arm. 

Estel walks before them, too tall for the doorways. He keeps watch like he always does except for the rare times he can rest, the scarce moments he has to himself in a way that is not asking anything of him. This world will probably not afford him much time to rest either. Duty is written in the lines of his face and the grey in his dark hair. 

Elrond catches his own reflection in the windows and glass doors that they pass. Sometimes it is clearly there, and sometimes it is little more than a shadow, as he fades out of sight, instinctively, not even thinking. 

Hardly anyone notices them.

But there are cars in the driveways for sale like Gandalf said there would be. Old things with rust on the metal siding and signs pressed to the windows. Numbers: Phone numbers. Prices. 

They stop by a big green car. It’s bigger than the other ones they’ve seen. Estel peers into the windows and turns to Gandalf. 

‘It’s bigger,’ Estel says. ‘I think it’s supposed to be for eight people?’ 

‘That would be a start,’ Gandalf says. The door of the house swings open. First the thin white metal one and then the heavy wooden one painted a dark blue. Elrond’s sons disappear like mist down the street. 

‘Hello,’ Gandalf says. 

‘120,000 miles on the van,’ a man says. He steps onto the porch and sticks his hands into his front pockets. ‘But she runs good.’ 

Elrond reaches for Gandalf’s thoughts with his. He thinks he knows what the man said, but he’s not exactly sure. 

‘No real problems. There’s a bit of rust, but that’s expected with the salt. Can get that right out. But it was my wife’s, and she didn’t use it too heavy.’ The man scratches at the bottom of his chin. ‘Name’s Drew.’ 

‘Olórin,’ Gandalf says. ‘We’ve just moved.’

‘To town?’ 

‘North Harbour.’ 

‘That’s aways.’ 

Gandalf nods. Elrond feels like he might be slipping out of view again. It’s sometimes hard to stay completely opaque when he’s worried. 

Gandalf is talking faster now, and Elrond smiles a soft smile that he knows is warm and kind and gentle and he doesn’t mean it to be manipulative, but sometimes it feels like it is. Because he’s beautiful and people tend to want to listen to him. 

Drew smiles back. His gaze lingers on Elrond. That happens. Elrond’s used to it. He stands straight behind Gandalf while Gandalf and Drew talk. 

‘Do you want to test drive it?’ Drew asks. It’s easy to make deals when Gandalf wants to be charming. Gandalf turns to Elrond. Elrond nods once. 

‘Yes,’ Gandalf says. 

Elrond slides his hand into his pocket and pulls out his driving license. He made it. He’s a first rate forger, though he doesn’t go around telling people that. 

‘Yes,’ Elrond repeats, the first thing he’s said. 

‘Thank you,’ Gandalf says. Elrond nods slowly. 

Drew gets into the front side and Elrond gets behind the wheel. Gandalf gets in the back of the van. Drew slides on the seatbelt, and Elrond mimics him. He fastens it on his second try. There is a slot for keys next to the wheel, and he slides the one key he was given into it and turns. The van starts up. It’s louder than Elrond expected, but he doesn’t start. The vibrations of the engine run through his body. 

Elrond shifts his hand to the gear stick. He presses his foot down on the brake. Gandalf read him a manual on driving, and he copies the motions that Gandalf described: Pushes the gear stick to reverse, lifts his foot, easing off the brake. The van backs slowly down the drive. Elrond turns the steering wheel, and the van turns a little, but not as much as he’d expected. He turns the wheel again to the right, and the van turns with it. He straightens out the wheel, and the van straightens out on the road. 

Good, Gandalf says in his mind. 

Elrond moves his foot to the accelerator pedal. He presses on it very slowly, and the van moves forward down the narrow road. Elrond keeps it in a steady line down the straight street. The engine is still a vibration, running through his body. He turns right onto the other, larger road, and drives the van around the block. He catches a glimpse of Estel, but not the twins. 

It runs. That’s good enough, isn’t it? Elrond asks Gandalf. I can’t make it pretending forever. This is only my first time driving. 

And a good job you’re doing at it too, Gandalf answers. But you are right, I think we have seen enough to get on with. 

‘Yes, we would like to buy it,’ Gandalf says out loud. 

Gratefully, Elrond drives the van back into the driveway, though it ends up too much on the lawn. He hopes that Drew won’t be very upset, but he doesn’t seem to notice at all. 

Elrond gets out of the van and waits. Gandalf and Drew get to talking, and Elrond can’t keep up with the conversation anymore. 

He reaches for Elladan’s thoughts, and Elladan says that they are fine and just exploring. 

Gandalf motions Elrond over after a bit. 

‘Sign here.’ 

Elrond signs his name the way he practised, the way that it is written on his forged license. He smiles at Gandalf and then at Drew and Drew shakes both their hands and goes inside. 

‘More papers,’ Gandalf says.

Elrond nods. He brushes the side of his hand against Gandalf’s hand. Gandalf squeezes his hand for a moment. 

‘You’re going to have to drive it back, dear.’ 

Elrond’s eyes widen. It wasn’t like he didn’t already know that, but Gandalf sounded much too happy reminding him. Gandalf smiles at him, eyes twinkling. 

‘You’re horrible, and I don’t love you,’ Elrond murmurs. 

Gandalf smiles again. 

Drew returns with more papers. Gandalf hands the money over. Drew counts it. Elrond signs again. Drew hands him the papers and keys. Elrond takes them.

We go now, Gandalf says.

Elrond nods once. 

‘Dank you,’ he says to Drew. Then follows Gandalf’s lead and gets back into the van. He turns it on again. It starts up, just as loud, shaking with the engine. Elrond backs it out of the driveway again, grateful for the slope of the hill guiding it down, and straightens it out. Drew goes inside, and Elrond drives the car down to the end of the street. 

‘That was easy enough,’ Gandalf says. Elrond nods. His twins have materialised on the side of the road. Elrohir pulls on the handle on the side of the van, and the door slides open along the length of the van. Elrohir and Elladan get in. 

‘I want to try,’ Elrohir says. ‘Ada, can I drive?’ 

‘No,’ Elrond says. ‘Where’s Estel?’ 

‘He went down to the river,’ Elrohir says. ‘You took hours.’ He leans forward on his seat, wrapping his arms around the back of Elrond’s chair and Elrond. 

‘I want to drive.’ 

‘Sit,’ Elrond says.

‘Elrohir, don’t choke your father,’ Gandalf scolds.

Elrohir kisses Elrond’s cheek. 

‘No,’ Elrond says. 

Elrohir sinks back with a sigh and brushes his hair back. He takes a ring off and plays with it. 

Elrond navigates onto the bigger street, waiting almost three minutes to turn, since he was unsure of how fast the turn would be, and how much he had to press down on the pedal. Right turns are easier. 

They find Estel down by the river, where three docks jut into the water, one after the other, and boats are tied. 

‘Oh, beep at him,’ Elladan says. He has also read the driving manuals. 

‘I’m not going to beep at him,’ Elrond answers. 

Gandalf slams his hand down on the horn. The van blares out a long horn. Estel jumps.

‘Gandalf!’ Elrond sighs. Estel crosses over the parking lot. He pulls on the door, taking a couple tries to open it, and then gets into the van. He sits on the back bench and sticks his long legs out past the first bench where Elladan and Elrohir are seated. 

‘This is fucking tiny.’ 

‘You’re too big,’ Elladan says.

Estel puts a hand on Elladan’s neck.

‘Oh, gonna strangle me?’ Elladan tilts his head back. ‘That’s hot.’

Elrond hides his smile with his hand. 

‘Can I remind you that you’re not in the presence of the Rangers of the North, but in Polite Company?’ Gandalf says.

‘Who’s Polite Company?’ Estel drops his hand from Elladan’s neck and pulls on his hair. 

‘Your father,’ Gandalf answers.

‘I object to that,’ Estel says. 

Elrond ignores them both and manoeuvres the van out of the parking lot and onto the road. He drives along the road parallel to the river. 

‘We need to get supplies,’ he says.

‘What is most urgent?’ Gandalf asks. 

‘Of course, the rest of medical,’ Elrond says. ‘And we need more food and some tools for repair at the house. But we all need changes of clothes.’ Gandalf nods. 

‘Can’t keep washing all the clothes and waiting out the drying wrapped in blankets naked?’ he asks.

‘It’s a bit of a hassle,’ Elrond says quietly. He and his children had been doing most of the washing as washing the clothes in the stream by hand is cold work. And some people were more modest than elves tended to be. (Not that he had ever had a real notion of privacy.) ‘And we need more blankets. And beds. Pillows. We still have money, right?’ 

‘Yes,’ Gandalf says. ‘And turn left here, dear.’ 

Elrond slows the van much too suddenly. It lurches them all forward. 

‘Ada!’ Elladan says. 

‘Sorry.’ Elrond puts the blinker on and turns the van onto the other street. The turn is too sharp, and they wind up in the left lane, which fortunately clear. Elrond steers it back to the right lane. He lets out a sharp breath between his teeth. The street is on a steep hill, and the van slides back onto the river road. Another car swerves to miss it; the horn blasted. 

‘Fuck.’ Estel breathes out.

Elrond presses his foot hard on the accelerator pedal, and the van, whining, starts up the steep hill. Elrond keeps his hands steady, though his heart is beating quickly now.

‘You’re all right, dear,’ Gandalf says.

Elrond presses down on the pedal again as the van starts to slow. He lifts his foot slowly as they reach the top of the hill and the street starts to level out. 

‘And turn right here,’ Gandalf says.

‘Oh, god,’ Elrond says under his breath. The street where Gandalf wants him to turn has two lanes both going the same direction, and both are filled with vehicles.

‘Just wait for an opening,’ Elrohir says, close to his ear. He is leaning very far forward now, watching the road. 

‘Mmm.’ Elrond watches too. It is a right turn, but the oncoming vehicles seem much too fast to make the turn. 

‘Now,’ Elrohir commands, and Elrond obeys. He makes the turn too sharp again, and rolls the van over the curb before it comes down onto the street, two thuds, one for each wheel.

‘Maybe Ro should drive.’ Gandalf leans back in his seat and adjusts his hat. 

‘Fine,’ Elrond says. He is not enjoying it. 

The road is straight now, and Elrond has to stop three times for red lights before his turn. But it is a right turn, so he stays in the right lane, and soon pulls into the parking lot.

‘There we go,’ Gandalf says when Elrond has parked the van on his third try between the lines of a parking space. Elrond slides the gear stick into park and turns the van off. He runs his hand over his hair, rings catching on his braids. 

‘Oh, fuck.’ 

Elrohir leaned forward again and wraps his arms around Elrond and chair. 

‘You did so good.’ 

Elrond reaches back to stroke his cheek.

‘Mmm.’ 

‘We’ll split up to be faster,’ Gandalf says. ‘Elrond, you can do medical and clothing. Take Elrohir. Aragorn, you’re coming with me to look for beds and tools. Elladan, get food and then you can go with your family.’ 

‘I have to go alone?’ Elladan asks.

Gandalf grunted, which is the most he is going to acknowledge the comment. Elladan takes the money Gandalf hands him and sets off across the parking lot to the grocery store. 

Estel and Gandalf head off to the other side of the lot where there is a Lowe’s. Elrond and Elrohir make for TJ Maxx. 

‘We can dress everybody how we want to,’ Elrohir says, eyes shining.

‘You’re a brat.’ 

Elrohir takes his hand. 

‘But we can.’ 

The doors to the store slide open on their own. Inside it is very bright, but the light is harsh, like it is in most stores. There are suitcases and bags right in front of them, and then jewellery behind that, and racks and racks of clothing, and household goods towards the back of the store.

Elrond takes a cart. He pushes it down one of the wide white aisles. Elrohir, dissatisfied with Elrond releasing his hand, wraps his arms around his arm. 

‘Do you know how to read the price tags?’ 

‘Yes,’ Elrond says. He does know that much. Elrohir blows on his ear. 

‘Am I your favourite child?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘Why?’ 

‘Nearest to me.’ 

Elrohir blows on his ear again. 

‘Am I annoying?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘Still your favourite?’ 

Elrond shakes his head instead of answering. His children can be pains, but they do it on purpose to get him to react. Apparently he’s ‘cute when annoyed.’ 

‘What do we need to get?’ Elrohir asks. He runs his finger over a rack of clothing, pulling it back and rubbing it against his leg at the touch of some of the fabrics. ‘Not those,’ he whispers. 

Elrond slips out a list written in his neat, ‘scholarly’ handwriting and not his fast script, the one that gave Saruman pause. 

‘A lot,’ he says. ‘We need a lot.’


	11. and I’ll never go home again

Mairon comes out of the veil with ten fingers and ten toes. The world is blue. The world is green. The world is turquoise The world has slats of light falling on him. He looks up. He is underwater. 

He lets his breath out and presses up. 

On the count of fifty he reaches the surface. He comes up into a world of sunlight. The sky is blue. The sea is blue. The sun is white like a flame unreachable. 

He slides onto his back. He holds himself in the waves, arms and legs stretched out, fingers spread.

It’s a world different than anything he’s seen, but he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know. 

He breathes in the air, not the water. He is a god. 

The world is turquoise. He is god. 

Elrohir holds a shirt in front of him.

‘Is this nice?’ 

He thinks it’s cute. It’s black with a bit of a ruffle. 

‘It’s nice,’ Elrond says. ‘For you?’ 

‘Mhm.’ Elrohir puts it in the cart. He runs his finger over a row of shirts. He pulls one. ‘For Arwen?’ 

‘All right.’ 

Elrohir puts that in the cart too. 

‘She needs two dresses. That’s what she said. And a nightgown.’ 

Elrond nods. 

‘The hobbits can fit into children’s clothes?’ 

‘Probably.’ Elrohir searches through the dresses. ‘Boromir is big. Muscle big. And tall. Estel is way too tall.’ 

Elrond hums an agreement. Elrohir takes a blue dress with white flowers.

‘For Arwen.’

‘Okay.’ 

Elrohir stays close to Elrond. He doesn’t like the lights. They’re too bright. He knows they both look out of place. People are looking. 

People are staring, he says to Elrond.

Yes, Elrond says. Aren’t you used to it, travelling with the rangers? 

Elrohir laughs, softly, but out loud. 

Yes. But I don’t know what they’ll say. 

All right, love. 

Elrond is very methodical in his movements. He pulls out socks. He puts them in the cart. He takes underwear. He puts them in the cart. 

‘Do the hobbits wear socks?’ 

‘I don’t think so.’ Elrohir steps carefully on the tiles, not stepping on the cracks. He doesn’t know the material they’re made of.

Elrond takes him gently by the arm and steers him towards nightclothes. Elrohir pulls some clothes, but he lets Elrond choose most of them. Elrond is good at understanding what other people want. Elrohir would just dress everyone the way he thought would be cute. He blows on his father’s ear again. Elrond is cute when he wrinkles his nose in frustration. 

‘Ro…’ 

Elrohir steps carefully on the tiles again. The lights are giving him a headache. They hum a lot. 

‘Legolas likes forest clothes,’ he says. He knows enough about Legolas. 

‘Yes, love.’ 

‘Estel looks good in red.’ 

Elrond smiles. 

‘But he doesn’t often wear it.’ 

‘So get him something red.’ 

‘I don’t know what will fit him.’

‘So get red fabric.’

Elrond smiles gently. 

‘Bossy.’ 

‘But you want to listen to me.’ 

Elrond sighs. He pats Elrohir’s arm. The rings on his fingers glint in the light. Not everyone can see all of them. Elrohir can. 

Elladan catches up with them when they’re in the children’s section, trying to find clothes for the hobbits. 

‘Did you measure them?’ Elrohir asks as Elrond lifts a sweater.

‘Yes,’ Elrond said. He checks the size of the sweater.

‘Read about that too?’

‘Yes.’ 

‘Can I drive home?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

Elrohir smiles. 

‘Please don’t let him drive home,’ Elladan says. ‘He hasn’t had any practice at all. You need to do it.’ 

‘All right,’ Elrond says.

‘Ada’s being very secretive,’ Elrohir tells his brother. ‘Will or won’t. He agrees to everyone.’ 

Elladan shrugs. 

‘I got all the food on the list. Are you almost done? Estel and Gandalf are almost done.’ 

‘I’m almost done,’ Elrond says. ‘I just don’t know what will fit Estel. He’s so tall. And I’ve just picked out some things. I haven’t found any fabric. I’m not sure where in this city to buy fabric. It’s harder to find than ready made clothes.’

‘That’s strange,’ Elladan says. ‘Gandalf’s done so much. Ordered beds and everything.’ 

‘That’s nice,’ Elrond says.

‘They’re getting delivered,’ Elladan explains.

Elrond nods

‘That makes sense.’ 

‘Gandalf can walk really fast.’

‘Yes, dear.’

‘But he needs to trim his beard,’ Elladan adds. ‘We’ll hold him still for you.’ 

‘He’s not a puppy, Ella,’ Elrond says. 

Elladan flashes him a bright smile. His eyes are laughing. Elrohir grabs him from behind. 

‘We’re in public,’ Elrond says without even looking at them.

‘Sorry,’ Elrohir says. He sometimes gets too excited and has to jump and do something or all the excitement will make him explode. He bites Elladan’s hair. 

‘Ahh, that pulls,’ Elladan whines. 

‘Boys.’ Elrond shoots them a serious look. They cut it out. 

Gandalf comes into the store. He looks almost normal. He’s wearing his grey tunic and dark grey sirwal, enormous black boots, and the clothes don’t exactly match the look that others are wearing, but somehow he looks like he could be normal. It’s the old man look, the way he can make himself blend in. 

‘Elrond taking the longest, I see.’ 

Elrond sighs very dramatically. 

‘I have to take many things into consideration. Of course it’s taking longer.’

Gandalf picks up a pink sweater with a pink bow. 

‘Get this for Frodo. He’d look very cute in it.’ 

‘Would he wear it?’ Elladan asks. ‘I’ve never seen him with even a ribbon.’

‘Pippin might wear it,’ Elrohir says. ‘I’ve seen him with blue ribbons in his hair.’ 

Elrond takes the sweater and puts it in the cart. 

‘Frodo wears bows,’ Gandalf says. ‘But in white. At his collar. He needs to branch out his colours.’ 

‘Says Gandalf the grey,’ Elrohir says.

‘Ha!’ Elladan says. 

‘Do the hobbits need dresses?’ Elrond asks. 

‘Absolutely not,’ Gandalf says. ‘They don’t wear shoes who knows what else they don’t wear.’ 

Elrond stares at him for awhile.

‘Wouldn’t you know? Anyway, Frodo was wearing pants when he came in for surgery.’ He adds a couple dresses to the cart. 

‘All right, can we go then?’ Gandalf says. 

Elrond nods.

‘We’re done.’ 

‘Good. Let’s get back before Galadriel kills Saruman’ 

Galadriel hasn’t killed Saruman yet, and Legolas sees that as a good sign that she won’t. He’s not actually sure if she could even if she tried. They have immense amounts of power and it’s all very dark and terrible. 

He is watching the hobbits play some sort of ball game from where he is perched in a tree. He doesn’t know what it is called, but it involves hitting a ball with a stick and running around the yard to little spots. 

He wonders if he should talk to Boromir or Gimli. He is a little bit interested in both of them. Not particularly interested. Well, that isn’t true. He is quite interested. They are both very strange to him. 

Arwen and Galadriel are busy being together, and he doesn’t want to third wheel them. He’s a bit bored.

Well, quite bored. He doesn’t want to hit the ball around the yard, and he’s already explored the woods.

He drops out of the tree and goes to the back of the house where Boromir is nailing boards on the barn that were starting to come loose. 

‘What are you doing?’ Legolas says to start a conversation.

Boromir stares at him for a long time. He doesn’t understand that Legolas is trying to start a conversation and not that he doesn’t know what he is doing. 

‘Fixing the barn,’ Legolas says since Boromir still hasn’t spoken. ‘It looks good.’

‘Thanks.’ Boromir puts a new nail in. He bangs it into place. 

‘They’re getting more stuff to fix things with.’

‘Yes.’ 

‘How old are you?’ 

‘Forty-one.’ 

‘Oh!’ Legolas sways. ‘Frodo’s older than you.’

‘He’s not.’

‘Mhm. He’s fifty.’

Boromir shakes his head. 

‘Well then.’ He looks Legolas over. ‘How old are you.’ 

‘About 400. I don’t really count it. I’d have to do the math for it.’ He tilts his head to the side. ‘425.’

‘That was fast.’ 

‘I’m very smart.’

‘Fancy that.’ 

‘That’s a bit rude,’ Legolas says. 

‘Didn’t mean it that way,’ Boromir says. ‘Sorry. So Frodo’s really fifty? He looks much younger. But he’s a halfling.’ 

Legolas nods. He sways. He thinks it might have something to do with the Ring too from what he’s picked up from bits of conversation. It might make Frodo immortal. It did something like that to Gollum. 

‘My father really liked his father.

Well, his guardian? Adopted father? Bilbo.’ 

Boromir nods. He holds a nail in his hand. 

‘You need to put that in.’ 

‘Yes.’

Legolas shuts up. He waits for Boromir to put the nail in. He misses his father. He decides not to think about it. He wants Elrond to hold him when he breaks down over that. And Elrond’s in the city. 

He doesn’t know what he is supposed to say. Asking questions about people’s home and family seems unfair now. As he doesn’t want to think about it himself. 

‘Do you want to swim?’ Legolas asks. ‘In the lake?’ 

Boromir looks up. 

‘Yes. Thank you. I’m almost done.’ 

Legolas nods. He keeps swaying. 

‘It’s not too cold for you?’ 

‘No. I’ll be fine.’ 

Legolas shuts up again as Boromir finishes nailing the last board down. 

‘Should we ask Gimli?’ 

Boromir stands. He brushes his hands on his trousers. 

‘Can Dwarves swim?’ 

‘Ummmm. No idea. Should ask Bilbo.’ 

‘Can’t we just ask Gimli?’ 

‘Isn’t it rude to ask if Dwarves can swim?’ 

‘We can just ask if he wants to go swimming,’ Boromir said. 

‘But you should ask him,’ Legolas said. ‘Because he’ll say not if I ask him…’ 

‘Yeah, Elf/Dwarf rift.’ Boromir carries the hammer into the barn. He puts it on the rotting workbench. 

‘Do you have Elves in Gondor?’ 

‘No.’

‘Do you have Dwarves?’ 

‘I think a couple.’

They find Gimli studying a crack in the foundation of the house. 

‘Are you going to fix it?’ Legolas asks. 

‘Might be able to,’ Gimli says. He eyes Legolas. Legolas eyes him back. He feels a bit of contempt based on histories he wasn’t alive to see. Gimli does too, he feels. 

‘Do you want to go swimming?’ Boromir asks. 

‘In the lake?’ Gimli asks. 

‘Where else is everyone swimming?’ Boromir asks. 

‘Could walk to the ocean, I guess,’ Gimli says. 

Legolas waits. Gimli hasn’t given an answer. He still doesn’t know if Gimli can swim. 

‘It’s a bit cold to swim, isn’t it?’ Merry calls from their ball game. 

‘It’s fine,’ Boromir says. 

‘Lake’s cold,’ Merry calls back. 

‘Good for you,’ Boromir says. 

‘Eugh. I hate things that are good for me.’ 

‘Merry, throw the ball!’ Pippin calls. ‘Come on!’ Merry turns his attention back to the game. 

‘Bit cold,’ Gimli says. 

‘Can Dwarves swim?’ Legolas blurts out. 

Gimli stares at him for an uncomfortably long time. 

‘I can swim,’ he says finally. 

‘You’re not too heavy to float?’ Legolas says before remembering with a start that Gimli’s own father had gone down the river in a barrel, floating for sure. 

Gimli stares at him for an even longer time. 

‘No.’ 

Legolas sucks in his lip and nods. Boromir stares back and forth between the two of them. 

‘I don’t want to swim,’ Gimli says finally. ‘But thank you for the invitation.’ He bows his head with a little jerk. 

Boromir and Legolas return the bow. Gimli nods and then goes inside. 

‘Ai yai yai,’ Legolas shakes his head. ‘I say wrong things.’ 

Boromir, politely, does not agree or even comment. He starts off towards the lake. Legolas walks with him. He hums a song. 

‘I know that tune,’ Boromir says. 

Legolas nods. 

‘Walking song.’ 

‘Yes.’ 

They get to the lake. It’s a branch of a large lake, but they can’t see much of it. There are hills behind it, and it is surrounded by woods. 

Legolas strips and leaves his clothes on a rock on the small beach. It’s just a strip of sand, maybe six inches of it wide and three feet long. He runs into the water. It’s always strange the moment when the water starts to pull your legs down, turning from the lightness of running to a cold drag, and then he plunges down into it, and it makes the world change completely into a vision of waving light and bubbles around him. 

He sees Boromir beside him before he shoots forward underwater as fast as he can. He can hold his breath for minutes at a time if he wants. He won’t go that far, leaving Boromir behind.

He comes up in the lake where the water is deep and dark. He can still see to the bottom. There are dead trees beneath the water, fish, rocks, lake plants. Boromir will take awhile to catch up.

Men might be stronger than Elves, but Elves are almost always faster, and definitely more agile. He swims back to Boromir. 

‘It might rain. Don’t catch cold, okay? Estel will kill me if I kill you.’ 

‘I’m good,’ Boromir says. He threads water and then heads out farther. He is a strong swimmer.

Legolas follows him out. 

‘You could swim right across the lake, couldn’t you?’ 

Boromir looks at the far shore. 

‘Yeah.’ 

‘Are you one of the strongest men in the world?’ 

‘Probably.’ 

Legolas ducks underwater and then comes up again. 

‘I’m the best archer in my home. I can use a bow with my feet too.’ 

‘Fancy that.’ 

‘What does that mean? “Fancy that.”?’ 

Boromir doesn’t answer right away. 

‘Doesn’t it mean you’re surprised? Like that it’s hard to believe I’m the best archer?’ 

‘I don’t mean it like that.’ Boromir has slowed his swimming to keep up with the conversation. 

‘How do you mean it?’ 

‘It’s… I don’t know what to say to you. You’re over four hundred.’ 

‘Elrond’s over six thousand. Fancy that!’ 

‘Yeah.’ Boromir gives him a quick smile. 

Legolas slides beneath the water again. His hair streams out around him. He does a somersault underwater. It’s a deep lake. There are many trees in the water.


	12. heroes often fail

Fortunately it’s a right turn out of the parking lot with a stop light, so no oncoming traffic. Elrond makes the turn easily and keeps up the pace up a less steep hill with the rest of the traffic.

He’s learning to stop easier now, anticipating how long it will take to slow the van. There’s three stop lights and then Gandalf tells him to slow down and turn left. Elrond makes the turn when the light turns green and then they’re on a small road going out of the city. There are houses around them that give way to trees that give way to farming fields. There’s a sharp turn onto a bridge that crosses a small river, and he makes it wrong, almost running into the railing. But there are no vehicles behind him, so he backs the van up and makes it on the second try.

‘Very good,’ Gandalf says.

‘You try it,’ Elrond says.

‘No thank you, dear.’

‘I’ll drive,’ Elrohir says.

‘No,’ Estel says. ‘Let him. He’s doing good.’

‘Mmm.’ Elrond’s not looking forward to getting back on the highway, though Gandalf has mapped out a route that will put him back on back roads for the rest of the trip. He’s driving slowly, but the highway will force him to drive faster, with more traffic. But there’s no way to avoid it. There’s a ten mile strip.

‘Drive faster,’ Estel says, like he’s reading his mind. ‘Practice.’

Elrond speeds up. It’s surprisingly not as bad as he’d imagined. It doesn’t feel that much faster. He practices slowing down. Then speeds up again. Elrohir leans forward and puts his hand on Elrond’s shoulder. He’s learning how to drive from it. The fields around them are green.

It’s a right turn onto the highway. Elrond waits until no cars are coming, though the car behind him honks. Then speeds up to fifty miles per hour and keeps it there. Everyone passes him when they can.

The cars passing fast beside him are loud and seem too close, but he keeps the same speed and focuses on staying between the lines.

‘Is it hard?’ Estel asks.

‘Mm.’ Elrond doesn’t feel like talking.

‘Elrond’s good at everything,’ Estel says to Gandalf.

‘Yes,’ Gandalf agrees.

It’s a relief to turn onto a side road again. They pass a grove of cedar trees, a bay filled with the green ocean, a stone church and a stone library, set close together. Next is another steep hill that Elrond doesn’t roll down, and then another stretch of road with houses on either side until they reach a small town with a huge anchor sitting by the sea. There is fog over the sea. They pass through the town in a minute, and the land becomes forest again and it stays forest with the occasional house for most of the drive, except for when they pass through one small town or another, all gone in moments, or catch glimpses of the sea.

Gandalf reads from the map, and Elrond follows the directions. Gandalf looks content, and he’s started joking around again. Elrond missed that. He’s glad that Gandalf feels happier now, is more relaxed. He hopes it won’t disappear once they get back to the house and the stress of it. There’s Saruman and Galadriel and Maglor and Frodo and the Ring.

‘What’s wrong?’ Gandalf says.

‘The van needs fuel soon,’ Elrond says, though it wasn’t what he was thinking of. ‘I don’t know how to do it.’

‘I can do it,’ Gandalf assures him.

The van does need to be fueled. Elrond pulls into a station and follows Gandalf’s instructions in parking and turning the van off. Gandalf gets out and leaves them all.

‘Do you think she killed Saruman?’ Elladan asks.

‘She didn’t.’ Elrond shakes his head.

‘But she could have.’

‘She didn’t.’

Elladan puts his head on Estel’s shoulder.

‘Gandalf’s very pleased with himself. I wonder what he did.’

‘Oh, it’s exciting,’ Estel says.

‘You know?’ Elladan looks up at him. ‘Really?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell us then.’

‘No, I’m not allowed to.’

‘No!’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Tell anyway.’

‘No.’

‘But I’m your brother.’

‘But he’s a powerful wizard.’ Aragorn grins. He fluffs Elladan’s hair up. ‘So cute.’

Elladan sighs.

‘Estel is impossible.’

Gandalf comes back to the van. He opens something on the side of it and puts the pump in. Elrond doesn’t get out to watch it. He is exhausted. He’s glad they’re close to the house now. It will be only thirty more minutes of driving, maybe a bit more because of the dirt road.

Gandalf gets back in the van. Elrond starts it again and drives out of the station.

‘Did the seller think we were married?’ Elrond asks Gandalf after a moment.

‘I don’t think so,’ Gandalf says.

‘Gandalf looks way too old for you,’ Estel puts in.

‘I think he thought you were my grandchild.’ Gandalf strokes his beard.

‘Why?’

‘Because I said you were.’

Elrond laughs.

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’ Gandalf pats Elrond on the arm. ‘I’m old enough for it.’

‘Old enough to be my great great great great—‘

‘Now, now, enough of that,’ Gandalf cuts him off.

‘I think I look old enough to be his father,’ Estel says.

‘Oh!’ Gandalf turns to Estel. ‘Oh ho ho. You do then?’

‘He doesn’t,’ Elrond says.

‘I think he might,’ Gandalf says. ‘You’re very young looking if you close your eyes. He’s definitely got some grey in that hair.’

‘I don’t think he looks old enough,’ Elrond says. ‘And I don’t look young enough.’

‘We’ll ask Boromir,’ Gandalf decides. Elrond doesn’t argue.

It is a bit of a way up the dirt road to the house. The road is narrow, but they don’t run into any other vehicles. They are far out for a reason.

Arwen’s waiting for them when Elrond pulls the van into the drive. He parks it and turns it off and gets out without any problems. Arwen hugs him.

‘Did anyone die while we were gone?’ Elrond asks. He kisses her.

‘No.’ Arwen kisses him. ‘You should see Saruman. I don’t know where Maglor is.’

Elrond nods.

‘I fed him,’ Arwen says. ‘But we have to think of a long term solution.’

‘We could kill him.’ Galadriel has come out of the house.

‘We can kill a lot of people,’ Gandalf says. ‘It does not mean we should.’

Galadriel rolls her eyes.

She’s still the same spoiled princess she was on Valinor sometimes, Gandalf says in Elrond’s head.

Elrond ignores him. He doesn’t want to get into a fight with the two of them. Those are always horrible and incredibly difficult, and they just use him as a pawn until he’s the one all hurt.

Elrond goes to the barn and sits beside Saruman. He undoes his gag. He doesn’t know why Galadriel put it back on him. Isn’t it enough that’s bound by magic rope? He can’t leave. He doesn’t know the counter spell for the knot.

He hands Saruman a bottle of water. Saruman opens it and drinks. Elrond hands him a chocolate bar.

‘I brought you this.’

‘Thank you, Elrond,’ Saruman says. He doesn’t open the foil. He stares in front of him. Elrond doesn’t know what he’s thinking.

‘You are always so gentle, Elrond,’ Saruman says. ‘Even when you kill, you aim to do it without suffering. You’ve never tortured anyone.’

Elrond says nothing. He is thinking of Saruman’s speech before, in Rivendell, where he said that he’d been tortured, seconds stretching out to years, living through the pain of it.

‘He’s dramatic,’ Galadriel had said when they’d spoken of it, hidden away in the woods together. ‘And manipulative. Don’t listen to him.’

Elrond hadn’t answered her then, and he still doesn’t have an answer. He slides out a small round tin from his pocket and puts lip balm on Saruman’s chapped lips. He shuts the lid. The sound is loud in the empty barn, echoing from the rafters.

‘I always loved you,’ Saruman says. ‘Still love you. You’re… gentle, but strong and patient.’ He looks at Elrond now. He looks younger than Elrond’s seen him in forever. It’s something in his eyes, like he’s closer to the time when he came from over the sea, and his hair was as black as the night. It is white now. He is ageing, slowly, but he is ageing. His body won’t live forever. Elrond does not know if he could make himself a new one, or if he and Gandalf will just become spirits, unbound to anything, not even the word.

‘Do you still love me?’ Saruman asks.

This is a trap. Elrond does not know for what. It sounds like a trap.

Yes. No. I don’t know. I don’t remember.

Elrond runs through answers in his mind.

Yes, but I hate that I do. Yes, but you did so much evil. Yes, but I don’t know why. Yes, but everyone is telling me not to.

‘I love who I thought you were.’ Elrond looks up at the slats of light that come down through the hole in the barn roof.

‘But you don’t love who I am?’

‘I don’t know who you are.’

‘Do you know who Galadriel is?’

Elrond leans his head back against the rough wooden walls.

‘More than you can imagine.’

‘Are you sure?’

Elrond stands.

‘She’s right about you.’

* * *

Merry tosses the ball at Frodo. It’s getting a bit dull now, and he feels like they’re going to break a window, like some silly little children in a story about honesty.

Frodo misses the ball. Merry groans.

‘I’m tired of this. We need a new game.’

‘I want to talk to Gandalf,’ Pippin says. ‘But he’s holed up in the attic with Strider studying, or going off around the place studying, or talking to strange big people, studying. I’m so bored.’

‘The only thing to keep you from being bored is annoying Gandalf?’ Frodo asks.

‘Not annoying. Talking to.’

‘So annoying.’

Pippin picks the ball off the ground and throws it hard at the barn wall.

‘I’m so bored, and my cousins are mean.’

‘Such a tragedy,’ Frodo says. He sits on the rock in the yard. Merry sits beside him and lights his pipe. Sam sits beside them and searches through the clovers. Maybe he’s looking for a four leafed one to make a wish on and get home.

‘Doesn’t Gandalf have answers yet?’ Frodo says. ‘He’s reading and reading and reading and talking, travelling. We’ve been here… three weeks?’

‘We were in the woods for a week, then Gandalf came—’

‘After one week and three days. So one week four days since we came.’

‘Yes, so then Gandalf came, and we got to move into the house four days later. Bought it with Glorfindel’s ring somehow. So that’s two weeks, one day. And we’ve been in the house for five days now, and Gandalf’s furniture is supposed to be coming today, then? So… Two weeks and… six days.’

‘So three weeks,’ Frodo says.

‘Right.’ Merry blows out a smoke ring that only stays a ring for a second. He looks at the clouds in the sky. They don’t have any real shapes beside little puffs. He looks to the woods. Maglor is standing on the edge of the woods, like he often is.

Merry doesn’t know the whole story about him. Something like he killed someone Galadriel loved? Maybe. He doesn’t know. He asked Gandalf, but Gandalf didn’t have time for it. He asked Strider, and Strider said it wasn’t his place to talk about it. He should ask Elrond, but Elrond looks too sad to ask sad questions from. But he’s seen them standing together, Maglor’s arms around Elrond. And he’s seen Galadriel’s eyes turn cold when Maglor passed her. Merry is quiet. He sees a lot of things.

Maybe he’ll ask Legolas. Legolas is pretty friendly, but he is also young, apparently or relatively or whatever, and he doesn’t seem to know so much about the histories and family drama. Or maybe he pretends not to know so he doesn’t have to talk about it.

‘I’d kill for a proper bed,’ Merry says.

‘I don’t remember what a bed feels like.’ Pippin sighs.

‘Yeah.’ Merry sinks onto the yard near Sam. Sam looks at him but doesn’t say anything.

Elrond, Elladan, Elrohir, Legolas, Arwen, Galadriel, and Glorfindel all come out of the house, one after the other.

‘That’s a damn lot of elves,’ Merry says. Sam gives him a little smile.

‘We’re going for a walk,’ Elrond tells them, with such a firm and soft emphasis on the ‘we’ that the hobbits all jump up at once. Elrond nods and goes into the barn while Galadriel takes the lead on the walk. They pick up Gimli and Glóin on the way towards the path to the lake, and on they go. Elrond comes out of the barn with Saruman and follows them into the woods.

Merry feels Maglor follow them.

‘I guess the furniture is coming then,’ Merry says. ‘And they’re kicking all the “might give away we’re not quite normal people” out of the house?’

‘Yes,’ Elladan says. ‘Gandalf’s orders.’

‘Then how come you went to the city?’ Pippin asks.

‘Because we don’t say silly things,’ Elladan answers.

‘How can I say silly things when I don’t even speak the language?’

Merry sighs. Pippin is such a brat sometimes. Always asking silly questions when there are much more interesting things to probe about.

‘Because we’re good in strange situations,’ Elladan answers.

Pippin nods. Merry shakes his head. Just seeing all the elves or half-elves coming out in a line out the door would answer the question about why they were going to go hiding. They looked more and more magic in gatherings. Then throw in all their outlandish clothes that they were still wearing, a bunch of very short people with hair in strange places, pointy ears, and those elaborately braided and beaded beards the dwarves have. Well, it could start causing some questions. And they’re out in the woods to avoid those questions.

Merry looks back over his shoulder. Elrond is a few feet away from them with Saruman, holding onto his arm. Saruman has something off about him. Well, he was all evil and betrayed them, and all that, but there’s something else. Something lingers in his eyes, like he’s haunted by something that is not him.

Sometimes Merry catches the same look in Frodo’s eyes. Merry shudders and turns his attention forward again. He steps over a crooked root cutting its way through the path. The sun is out, but there’s still a bit of a grey haze from the morning fog that hasn’t yet cleared.

‘What did Maglor do?’ Merry asks suddenly. Pull it like this out of nowhere and he might get enough of a reaction to go on.

But only Elladan turns around. Merry had been expecting everyone to stop and the air around them to grow tense. The air does grow tense, but no one stops. Elladan stares at Merry for awhile, walking backwards for a few steps. Then he turns back without answering, but he slows his pace, and soon the hobbits are passing him, and then he’s behind them, and when Merry looks over his shoulder, he’s walking beside Elrond, holding his hand.

He did something to Elrond then, not just Galadriel.

‘I’d kill to have the books from Rivendell right now,’ Merry whispers to Frodo.

‘You’re in a killing mood today,’ Frodo says cheerfully.

‘Well, you get bored, so what do you do?’

‘Such a Brandybuck,’ Frodo teases.

Galadriel lets out a small scoff, barely audible. She probably wasn’t accounting for Hobbit hearing. So Maglor killed someone. Definitely not Elrond’s wife. Someone close to Galadriel, probably.

And Elrond knows him well. And loves him. That doesn’t sit well with Galadriel. She tries to be hard to read. Or maybe she’s not trying, maybe she’s desperately holding onto a calm exterior because she’s falling apart inside. People do that. Maybe not elves, but elves don’t seem as different from hobbits as he’d been expecting.

Merry looks over his shoulder again. Maglor’s trailing along near Elrond now. Merry looks ahead and catches Galadriel’s eye. She was looking back too.

She stares at Merry for a second that feels like five long hours. It’s like she’s looking straight into him and knowing everything he’s wanted to keep a secret, every evil thought, weakness, or impossible want.

Merry sucks his breath in and stares back. He’s stopped walking now, like one of those nightmares where you can’t get your legs to work, but all too terribly real.

Merry’s mother always did tell him he was going to get himself killed asking too many questions. Too much curiosity and all that.

‘I’m a murderer,’ Maglor says behind them. ‘Anything else is her right to say, or Elrond’s.’

‘He killed my family,’ Galadriel says, after a moment. ‘And stole Elrond and his brother captive. That’s enough for you to know. It was long ago. And we are all cursed.’

She turns away from him again. The sunlight comes down hazy on her hair.

‘I think,’ Pippin whispers, ‘I should have listened to more tales that didn’t have a happy ending, because I think we’ve walked into one.’

Merry squeezes his hand. They walk on.


	13. /fall

The sky is hazy, and the lake shimmers grey. Frodo sits on the small beach on a rock and watches the hints of shadows reflected in the water.

 _Frodo?_ the voice is soft in his head. The Ring, of course the Ring. It’s lonely. So lonely. It’s whispered his name ever since he asked that, as a child, at a winter party.

The Ring sat on the mantelpiece, and he found himself all alone with It.

He said, ‘Are you lonely?’ Because when he looked at it, he felt sad, terribly sad – and so alone. He hadn’t known that you could feel that alone. It was an ache inside of him, coming from It, ice creeping through his body.

Then It had only said, ‘yes.’ And then the party came in from restocking in the kitchen, and the whole room lit up with the warmth of people, and Frodo stood, watching It, consumed by emptiness.

‘Frodo?’ That’s Merry. Merry touching his arm, saying his name, there for real, but still feeling so unreal. Frodo turns to him. Merry’s face is blurred, like it isn’t quite real, or it was painted, and someone took a brush over it while it was wet. He blinks, and it’s just Merry.

_Frodo. Frodo. Frodo. Frodo. Frodo. Frodo. Frodo._

It knows his name. His name. He twists his name around in his mouth, but he can’t say his own name.

He says, ‘You’re going to get yourself killed asking questions.’

‘What a lark,’ Merry says. He tosses a stone into the water. It sinks, not three feet from the land.

Elladan is still close to Elrond. It’s easy to get them all confused, though Elrond is tallest. But Elladan’s hair is loose, and he slides the part back and forth with his hand as he talks, shifting his head so his hair falls into place, and then a minute later, he takes it out of place again.

Vaguely Frodo wonders if he’s ever killed any Big People. Even vaguer is the thought of if he’s killed a Hobbit. Someone. Hobbits go missing on the borders of the Shire sometimes. Do any of them go wrong?

Go _that_ wrong.

He wonders if Strider’s killed any men. There must be bad men in the bad parts of the world. There are. There have to be. Where else would all the terrible stories and all that come from.

What is that like? He tries to imagine killing Merry. It’s a dull thought, like he’s watching it from behind a sheer curtain. Merry would fight him. Unless he killed him in the night, killed him in his sleep. He could stab a knife into his throat and let him bleed from it. Then there would be the mess, the red of it on the bed, if they had a proper bed. Would have to burn the pillows, the mattress. Burn the body. Merry’s soft curls going up in flames.

He pushes the thought aside, slowly; it’s just a hazy thought, as thin as the clouds. He stretches and leans forward.

‘Hope my backache goes away when we get the beds,’ he said. ‘Makes me feel old.’

‘You don’t look it,’ Merry says.

‘But don’t I feel it.’ Frodo tries to smile. He manages it, but it’s too slow and feels wrong.

‘You all right there?’ Merry asks.

‘Backache.’ Frodo slumps forward, hiding his face with his arms, wrapped about his knees. Merry rubs his back without him asking.

‘What do you make of it all, Sam?’ Merry says. ‘Wizards and elves? Traitors and murderers? Before we know it there will be pirates and mermaids.’

Sam scoffs softly.

‘Not the same as murderers.’

‘Well, maybe the pirates?’ Pippin says. He scoops sand on top of sand into a pile that doesn’t resemble anything but a sand pile.

‘Sure,’ Sam says. ‘But that’s Fëanor’s son. Supposed to be lost.’

 _Frodo_ , the Ring murmurs low.

‘Lots of things were supposed to be lost,’ Frodo says. He doesn’t raise his head. He just watches Pippin pile sand on sand.

What’s the worst thing Strider’s done? Or Gandalf?

Elladan is beautiful where he stands in the grey light, but he would push Maglor into complete emptiness. It hurts so much, to be alone. He’s a murderer, but does that mean he should be forever alone? When was the last time these kinds of questions were imaginary scenarios without any consequence.

 _Do you love me, Frodo?_ It asks, gentle, like It will accept any answer.

Frodo holds his breath, but he doesn’t have an answer. It is a type of love, isn’t it? But it’s not the type of love he can put a name to, not now. But the ache was deeper when he gave It away, an emptiness spreading through his whole body, burning away who he was. He needed It. Would die for It.

He loves It.

 _Frodo_ , It says. _I love you desperately._

*

Erestor comes to fetch from the lake.

‘It’s nice now, the house,’ he says. That’s all he says. They all go back. And now the house has furniture, and it’s all very strange, and none of it feels right.

Frodo wanders around the room, touching the fabrics.

‘Well, don’t look so glum,’ Gandalf scolds. ‘We put a lot of work into this.’

‘It’s lovely,’ Frodo says. He doesn’t know if he means it, but it’s better than sleeping on blankets on the floor. His room has two beds. He will be with Sam then, since Merry and Pippin will want to share.

Gimli and Glóin also have a room downstairs, and they’re sharing with Bilbo, though Frodo supposes the room must have meant to be a pantry. His room was probably intended as a sitting room. Glorfindel and Erestor are sleeping in the living room now. Glorfindel likes keeping watch.

Upstairs, Frodo doesn’t know what the arrangements are. It’s a lot of people for one house, even if there is space in the attic. Elrond and his children, Strider, Boromir, Galadriel, Gandalf. Maglor is sleeping out in the barn with Saruman still. Frodo doesn’t know if that is a good idea if neither can be trusted, but he keeps quiet about it because what does he know, and he doesn’t want to start a whole fight.

He wonders if Strider and Arwen are sleeping together. He doesn’t know how elves go about their marriages or engagements. In the Shire it’s fine to sleep with someone as long as you’re engaged, and you can break the engagement after if it doesn’t work out quite right. You’re not supposed to sleep with a lot of people though, makes you look fickle, but of course there are exceptions. And rumours.

For some reason, he thinks that Galadriel and Gandalf will probably both wind up in the attic together. He muses briefly on whether they’re sleeping together, but turns the thought away as too absurd.

If Arwen is with Aragorn. No, Aragorn must be with Boromir. They’re both men. Or maybe Legolas is with Boromir. Frodo sighs. He can’t figure out how they are arranged, and he doesn’t think he should ask. He has a whole list of questions he shouldn’t ask. Maybe someday they’ll celebrate and then everyone can get drunk and high and let slip all their secrets. Maybe he’ll suggest a party in celebration of the furniture.

His fingers slip from the sofa, and he heads to the stairs. They’re steep, but he makes his way up them, quietly, as Hobbits go. There’s another bathroom upstairs. It’s the first door you reach, and it’s a bit open. The room is empty. He walks into it and studies the wooden floor, worn from the water, and the small window. It’s very clean, but still old, like everything in the house.

There’s one room on one side of the little hall on the top of the stairs and then two rooms on the other. There’s also a short sliding door, which turns out to be the door to a closet of some sort. Things have been put in it.

Elrond walks past Frodo and pats his good shoulder gently as he brushes by. He doesn’t comment on Frodo’s snooping. Frodo studies the ladder to the attic, but he doesn’t climb it.

He goes into the one room on the one side. It’s large, and the windows are huge, looking out over the back garden and woods. The other two rooms are smaller bedrooms, both with one sloped wall with little windows and then another larger window on one wall. One bedroom looks over the back garden, and the other the front.

All of the bedrooms now have beds, but there’s nothing personal enough in them to tell who is sleeping where. It doesn’t really matter. It’s just curiosity.

Sam’s followed him, went up the stairs after him. He trails Frodo through the rooms as Frodo walks back and forth between them, without any plan.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he feels like he’s searching for something, and he can’t stop searching until he finds it. One of Elrond’s sons, Frodo guesses it’s Elrohir by his braided hair, goes into the one of the smaller bedrooms and sits on the bed.

‘What are you looking for?’ he asks Frodo.

‘Gandalf’s surprise,’ Frodo says. ‘Unless this is it?’

‘No, he has something else planned to show after dinner.’

‘Hope we have a party,’ Frodo says, trying to sound casual, like he isn’t trying to learn everyone’s secrets.

‘Bit grim to have a party now. I’m Elrohir,’ Elrohir says, adding I’m Elrohir on fast, like a reflex.

‘Right.’ Frodo looks out the window at the woods.

Elrohir starts to unlace his leggings.

‘You won’t find out before dinner.’

Frodo nods.

‘That’s Gandalf.’

Elrohir slides off his leggings. The laces on the sides of them have left pink marks on his skin, crossed like the laces. He has legs like a dancer, and they’re bruised. Frodo notes both the marks and the bruises. He is more bruised than Frodo would expect an elf to be. But, well, he is a half-elf. Elrohir slides off his under-shirt. He takes a towel from a hook on the wall and goes into the bathroom.

Sam and Frodo stand alone in his room. Sam chews on the inside of his cheek, like he doesn’t know what they’re doing there and wants to ask. Frodo doesn’t know what they’re doing either. He pats the bed. It’s the same as the ones in his room. He wonders why Erestor didn’t have to go hide by the lake. Maybe it was just the volume of strange people that they were worried about.

He looks out the window at the woods again. Elves don’t even sleep normally. They can all take turns if they want. Elrond comes into the room and puts his notebook on the little desk. It’s white and looks as old as the house. Maybe it was left there.

‘Elrond,’ he says, slipping up a bit on the ‘r.’ Elrond turns to him. He has stars around his head again. They come and go. They’re so bright, glittering, like Elrond’s eyes.

‘Yes, dear?’

He has that tone again that makes Frodo feel like a child. It’s the sudden soft turn, his voice going lower at the end of the sentence, like he’s making certain Frodo knows he is not and will not be angry, even if Frodo broke a vase or spilled a cup of milk.

But all the questions Frodo wants to ask are things he can’t ask in front of Sam. Because he doesn’t want to see the terror in Sam’s eyes as they go wider, as Frodo says, ‘I keep killing people. In my dreams. In my thoughts. I cut my hands, in my dreams. In my thoughts. I keep thinking of climbing a tree to the top and falling off it. Why do I dream of waves, and will they swallow me? What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done, Elrond?’

‘Is this your room?’ he asks.

‘It is,’ Elrond says.


	14. on moonlight

Frodo finds Elrond’s room in the dark. He takes the steps slowly, and he makes not a sound. Glorfindel doesn’t notice him. He doesn’t know if Glorfindel is sleeping, but Glorfindel doesn’t move, so he figures he must be. 

There’s a patch of moonlight coming down on the wide wooden boards of the hall upstairs, and he skirts around it. From the one long room, he hears voices, Legolas and Aragorn whispering to each other. The door is closed, and so is the door to the other small bedroom. But the door to Elrond’s room is open halfway. 

Frodo slips in without having to push on it. He stands just in the doorway, not certain what he’s doing. He wants to talk to Elrond, but he doesn’t know what to do now. No one has said ‘hello’ or ‘who’s there’ or anything, like he had expected. So now he’s just standing in Elrond’s room, silent, in the dark. There is another patch of moonlight on the floor here. There’s a bag and the bag’s shadow in it. 

‘Well?’ a voice from the dark says. It’s not Elrond, he thinks. It could be, but it’s more likely one of the twins, though he couldn’t say which one. 

‘I want to speak to Elrond,’ Frodo says. One of the bed creaks. 

‘Alone?’ This time it is Elrond who speaks. Frodo can make them out pretty well now that his eyes have adjusted to the light. Elrond has sat up. His bare skin gleams in the shadows, either on its own or catching bits of the moonlight. Frodo can’t say which. 

Frodo shakes his head and then nods. He doesn’t want to talk to Elrond about it anymore. 

‘I’ll just go.’ 

Elrond slips out of the bed and stands. He follows Frodo out into the hallway and stands in the patch of moonlight. 

‘Is something wrong?’ 

‘My shoulder,’ Frodo says. ‘It hurts.’ 

Elrond places his hand gently on Frodo’s other shoulder and guides him into the bathroom. He turns the light on and shuts the door behind them. 

‘What is the pain like?’ Elrond washes his hands.

‘Like… throbbing,’ Frodo says. It’s true enough. He can feel a throbbing pain running through it most days, especially at night. 

Elrond kneels in front of him and unbuttons Frodo’s shirt. He pulls it off his shoulders. Frodo shivers. He didn’t notice the chill in the house before, he had been too focused on being quiet and trying to get to Elrond without raising any questions. 

‘Is it cold or hot?’ Elrond asks gently. He undoes the bandages on Frodo’s burn as well. Frodo glances down at it, but it makes him a bit ill to see the skin crossing together and knitting into something new. 

‘Cold,’ Frodo says. ‘I… it gets so cold.’ 

Elrond prods very gently just outside the area of the wound. 

‘Does this hurt?’ 

‘No.’ 

‘I’m going to get my bag. I forgot it.’ Elrond slips out, quiet as a shadow. Frodo’s noted that before. Elrond is quiet to the point of sometimes not existing unless you’re looking right at him, his children too. He wonders what it means. 

Elrond comes back in and runs the tap. 

‘Are you having nightmares?’ He starts again to treat the burn. 

‘Yes,’ Frodo says. 

‘Of what?’ 

‘The wraiths. A wave. Cutting off my fingers.’ 

Elrond looks up at him. It’s strange to have Elrond so low; Frodo’s so used to looking up at him. 

‘Do you cut off your own fingers?’ he asks, voice and hands both steady.

‘Yes,’ Frodo says. ‘Usually. Sometimes someone comes with a sword. But usually I cut off own my fingers, but then I can’t on the other hand, and it makes me sad.’ He hadn’t expected it to be so easy to say, but it comes out just like that. 

‘And do you ever hurt someone else in your dreams?’ Elrond carefully applies new bandaging. 

‘Sometimes.’ 

‘How do you feel about that in your dreams?’ 

‘I...’ Frodo pauses. ‘Usually I don’t feel anything.’ 

‘Who do you hurt?’ 

Now it’s getting hard to speak again. Elrond is getting done with the new bandages over the burn and is examining the stab wound. 

‘My hands are healing so much faster than my chest,’ Frodo says, switching the subject.

‘Yes, they weren’t burnt as badly,’ Elrond says. ‘Is it people you know?’ 

Frodo nods. That’s easier than talking. 

‘Does it scare you?’ 

Frodo nods again. He wonders if Elrond ever has dreams or thoughts like that. It’s easier to say they’re just dreams. He couldn’t explain how he’s imagined killing Merry or Pippin or Strider or Bilbo, Sam, everyone there, really, and others he has known. 

‘Is it only dreams?’ 

Frodo stays perfectly still. Sometimes it feels like Elrond is reading his mind, and he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t know if he would feel anything if Elrond were reading his mind. He thinks of an eagle, like it’s a test, like if Elrond asks him about eagles, then he’ll know for sure that he’s reading his thoughts, but if he is truly reading all of them, then he would know not to ask about eagles. Frodo shakes his head. He’s over thinking this. If Elrond really is reading his mind completely, he wouldn’t need to ask questions. And now he’s given his answer, unwittingly. 

‘No,’ he says, because he doesn’t want to sound like a coward if Elrond can read his thoughts. ‘It’s sometimes in waking thoughts.’ 

Elrond stares into Frodo’s eyes, his hand gentle on Frodo’s wrist. His eyes are kind, but it feels like staring into dark water and not knowing how deep it is or what lies in it. 

‘When did these start?’ he asks gently. 

‘Since Rivendell,’ Frodo says. 

‘It may have come from the blade,’ Elrond says. ‘Are you afraid to sleep? Do you have nightmares often?’ 

‘Yes, yes,’ Frodo says. The boards of the floor are worn down a bit in places, from many steps over many years. He feels cold and desperately lonely. ‘They got worse after the attack. And the barrow-wights. But mostly after the attack. And I feel… I feel like I was hacked to pieces once, and I’ve never felt that way before.’ 

‘Hacked to pieces?’ 

‘My hand off, my fingers.’ Frodo shakes his head. ‘Head off. Stabbed through the heart. Just hacked at, over and over and over.’ Frodo says it all in a gush because he wants it out of him, and Elrond listens, silent, but his face grows very pale. 

‘It’s Sauron, isn’t it?’ Frodo blurts, much too loud. 

Elrond sucks his bottom lip in. 

‘Isildur was angry,’ he says. ‘He hacked at the body…’ 

‘You were there,’ Frodo says. ‘You were there when...’ 

‘Yes. I saw Sauron’s death, then. But his… his spirit lived on.’ 

‘How did you live?’ Frodo said. 

Elrond stands and washes his hands. He washes them for some time, silent, staring at his reflection or at nothing. Or maybe at past memories that Frodo cannot see. 

Frodo tries hard to see Elrond’s aura. He sees it sometimes, something silver-white about him, glowing. And sometimes he sees stars around his head. Sometimes he sees a glimpse of Elrond’s thoughts – he knows they must be. Thoughts from when Elrond stares at someone a little too long and there’s a sudden memory of them that Frodo does not have. 

But all he can see when he reaches out to Elrond is dust and ash and a thick smoke, the taste of lying on a battlefield, tears ruining his vision. And a white bone red with blood, and a charred face. 

Frodo shudder, and Elrond starts.

‘How long?’ he says. 

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Frodo says, though he has a good guess. 

‘I didn’t try to touch your mind,’ Elrond says. ‘But you touched mine. How long have you been able to do that?’ 

Frodo’s heart races. He can’t tell if Elrond is angry. He doesn’t know what Elrond would do if he were angry. He feels ill, and he forgets about the nightmares and the throbbing in his shoulder. 

‘Since Rivendell.’ He doesn’t think it would be good to lie at such a time. 

‘And what have you seen?’ 

‘Just…’ Frodo says. ‘Just glimpses of people’s thoughts. I think. I can’t know, for sure. It just seemed like sometimes I knew what someone was thinking, or what they were planning to do or to say, or a memory the had of someone that I didn’t know.’ He doesn’t say ‘mostly with you’ because it sounds wrong, and he already feels like he’s invaded something he shouldn’t have. 

‘Whose thoughts?’ Elrond presses. Frodo shakes his head. Why does he always press? 

‘Because I can’t think of accurate answers if I don’t know what I’m dealing with,’ Elrond says out loud, in response to Frodo’s thought. 

‘Don’t read my mind,’ Frodo says. 

‘I wasn’t trying to.’ 

‘Mostly you,’ Frodo says. ‘It started in Rivendell.’ 

‘Anyone else?’ Elrond asks. 

Frodo shakes his head slowly, though that’s a lie. He holds up his hand for a moment. Elrond waits. Frodo likes that about him. He is much more patient than Gandalf, though that isn’t hard to be. 

‘I think it’s just you… and… perhaps your children.’ 

‘Not Gandalf?’ Elrond asks.

‘No.’ 

‘Anyone else?’ 

‘I don’t think so. It’s mostly you.’ 

There’s something nice about Elrond in how direct he can be. Still he thinks he’ll regret saying anything the moment he steps away from the small world that the bathroom has become. He looks out the window at the moon. 

‘It may have come from your surgery then,’ Elrond says. ‘I had to give you a part of my soul to heal you.’ 

Frodo could scream. Elrond said ‘I gave you part of my soul’ so calmly, like it was an every day occurrence, or something as common as lending a friend an umbrella. 

Elrond steadies Frodo gently holding his arm. 

‘It’s all right,’ he says. ‘I’ve done it before. Mostly to my children. To keep them alive. It’s all right, Frodo.’ 

‘Does it hurt?’ Frodo asks without thinking. Now it is Elrond who pauses, so Frodo knows it does. 

‘Not too much,’ Elrond says finally, which could mean anything, and Elrond knows it. ‘You should rest,’ Elrond says. ‘Would you like me to put you to sleep? Or I can give you medicine to help if you’d prefer I didn’t magic you. But with that I can’t guarantee that you won’t dream.’ 

‘Can you make it so I don’t dream?’ Frodo whispers. 

‘Yes.’ 

‘Then do that.’ The moon has craters like their home’s moon. The moon is silver, silent hanging. By the window, Frodo watches. ‘Please.’


	15. here I am

_third age, year 3018_

Faramir wakes to a soft hand drawn over his face. He stares up at an orc. He doesn’t know their names. They keep changing, his guards. He thinks he’s been captured for a month now. It feels longer, but he’s been trying to keep track of the days and nights, and it seems like there have been thirty-two nights.

‘What are you going to do with me?’ he asks. He feels stronger today than normal, though he doesn’t know why. Maybe he got more food yesterday. He got more water. His throat doesn’t ache as much.

‘You ask a lot of fucking questions for a prisoner,’ the orc says. This one has skin that is less translucent. He wears boots and armour, and he’s taller than most of them. His voice sounds more human.

‘I’m not sent to labour,’ Faramir says. ‘I am not being asked for information. What is the point of having me prisoner?’

The orc studies him.

‘You need more food.’ And then he leaves.

But why? Faramir asks no one. His chains are still fast. He knows it’s possible to go mad from this. He can’t go mad. They want to keep him alive, so they may know who he is. But his father won’t bargain with them, not for him.

He shakes, but the chains are strong. He can feel that he is losing muscles, not just fat. Sometimes he hears voices that sound like Men.

And every night he dreams of Boromir. Boromir stands in a world far away, and he calls Faramir’s name, but Faramir can’t reach him, no matter how he tries.

And in the nights, Boromir lies beneath stars, far from home, and weeps.

* * *

_common era, 2018_

Boromir wakes early and stares at his arm for a long time, not moving, as the grey light turns first lilac and then golden. He feels heavy. He can almost make out someone crying his name, but it’s nothing. He draws his hand over his face.

Last night Gandalf showed them ‘electronics’ after dinner – his great surprise. Now they can learn things. Boromir doesn’t know if he wants to know anything. Every morning he wakes wishing it was a nightmare, to find that it is all true.

He turns over. Legolas and Aragorn are still asleep in the other bed. They haven’t made final decisions on sleeping arrangements, and it’s unlikely they ever will with elves’ and half-elves’ sleeping schedules. Right now, Arwen is sleeping with Galadriel. That might stay that way. He doesn’t know.

He’s not usually awake before Legolas, but Legolas may have stayed up late. He isn’t sure how much the elves sleep. He dresses quickly in the chill of the room. It’s always cold in the mornings, even if it is summer.

He goes downstairs. Glorfindel and Erestor are awake, talking with one of Elrond’s sons, and Bilbo, surprisingly. But then again, old men do get up early. Boromir nods at them and puts on his boots. He goes out into the mist of the morning. The grass is dark and wet with dew.

He walks to the lake and watches the sun light run through the mist coming from the lake’s surface. He isn’t alone, but he doesn’t know who is in the woods nearby. One of the elves, probably, as he has heard no sound. He just feels someone watching him.

‘Who’s there?’ he says. He doesn’t like being watched. He doesn’t like that it be Maglor. He feels a terror run through him fast, like he’s a child in a dark tower and his candle has just blown out, leaving him in the dark.

One of the elves steps from the forest, hood raised, wrapped in silver-grey.

‘Arwen,’ she says.

Boromir nods.

‘Good morning, my Lady.’ He relaxes as much as he can. She hasn’t shown her face, and the lake seems dangerous in the morning, with the mist curling up from it, with the hollow sound of bird song echoing off the water.

Arwen draws her hood back. Her hair is dark, and the wind lifts at it. It reminds him of Faramir. He takes two steps towards the lake until his feet are almost touching the water, so that his back will be to her, so that he can cry. He doesn’t make a sound. He doesn’t know what it is that makes him want to hide this from her.

It’s something like she can’t know how he feels, and he thinks she might say she does. She doesn’t. He feels something tight in his stomach, and he’s thinking of summer in the goldenrod when Faramir followed beside him, and Boromir was always too fast. How Faramir’s hair flashed raven black in the sun, and Boromir braided it tight off his face and then lifted him onto his shoulders.

He’s far, so far. His home might be burning. He will never know. His people might be dying. He will never know. They have no ships to run to, no promised land of eternal life without grief.

He feels heavy, like he should break through the sand and fall into the earth. He feels heavy like he could walk into the lake and sink to the bottom of it and stay there, a sunken statue forever, growing algae.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Arwen sit on a rock. She draws her knees up to her chest and rests her chin on them. She watches the lake too. She looks light, like she would fly if she fell from a window, a cliff, a tree. Her hair blows over her face. She presses it back. She is not scared of him.

He’s lonely. It’s such a small thought – a silver coin on the bottom of a dry well, hidden from all light, whispering, ‘alone, alone. I am alone.’

‘I see my brother in my dreams,’ he says, the words coming out unbidden.

‘Then he still loves you,’ Arwen answers.

The mist is low.


	16. without a promise

Elrond watches the sun rise. He never slept after he put Frodo to bed. Instead he lay awake and watched the stars and tracked their courses and waited for the morning star to rise so he could climb to the top of a tall white pine and blow kisses to it. It winked at him. It must be Eärendil. It must be. 

Elrond went back to bed when the star faded from view. Elladan woke and then fell back to sleep beside him. 

That was an hour ago. Elrond still hasn’t slept. He runs his hand through Elladan’s hair and watches the sky. He hears Arwen leave and then Boromir. Galadriel goes downstairs awhile after. 

Elrond does not move. He isn’t sure what he’s waiting for, but he’s waiting for something. He wonders if he will ever see Eärendil again. It’s all a blur to him – what he said or didn’t say. All he knows is that he regrets it. 

He twists Elladan’s hair around his finger. Elladan has hugged him in his sleep. Elrohir wakes and stares dourly at them. Then he gets up and shoves the other bed over so it’s touching Elrond’s. He holds onto his brother and takes Elrond’s hand.

Elrond still does not know what he’s waiting for. He thinks of Frodo, Frodo creeping into the room in the night and the words he spoke after, all hurried and mumbled together. Elrond didn’t sleep because he didn’t want to dream of Sauron, or Isildur’s rage. 

He plays with Elrohir’s hair too. 

‘Where’s Arwen?’ Elrohir asks. 

‘Mmm,’ Elrond says. ‘She’s… taking a walk.’ 

Elrohir rests his chin on Elladan’s shoulder and stares at his father. Sometimes it’s a bit of a curse how well his children can read him. 

‘Not a curse, Ada.’ 

Elrond smiles. He tugs gently on Elrohir’s closest braid.

‘Go make breakfast.’ 

‘No.’ 

Elrond pulls Elrohir over Elladan into his arms. 

‘There you go.’ 

Elrond holds him close and stares out the window. The mist is starting to clear. He can’t move. He listens to Elrohir’s heart beat beneath his hand. It still feels like a dream. 

He wants to wake up home. He wants to be warm in his own bed. He wants everything that Bilbo wrote about in his little book – home and fire and his own gardens and his books and his closets with his clothes and Celebrían’s clothes hanging side by side. 

Celebrían. He doesn’t want to think about her right now, but it aches too bad for him to think of anything else. He’s walked to the sea and stood beside the grey rolling waves, and he gazed out long at the sea, but the longing he felt was like a memory of a longing, and not like how it felt in Middle-earth when the draw was strong enough that he could throw himself into the sea to try to swim to the Undying Lands and see her again. 

He doesn’t feel like she’s there, but maybe it’s a trick, or maybe it’s the ring, or maybe it’s a different sea in a different world, and he’s imaging Eärendil winking at him through the skies. 

He kisses the top of Elrohir’s head. 

‘What did Frodo want?’ Elrohir asks, and Elladan is awake suddenly. 

‘Medicine,’ Elrond answers. It’s true, and he doesn’t want to talk about the dreams that sound like Sauron’s death. He was there. He lay on the ground as Isildur hacked at the body, and he held Gil-galad’s hand even though he was already dead, and it burnt him. The burn doesn’t show. He was always more resistant to fire than most, and his burns healed fast. His children are the same. Arwen is a jewel smith and yet there are no marks on his arms – there should be at least one, if she were an elf, or a mortal. 

He feels heavy, and he knows he’s depressed, because he’s felt this way many times before, but still, just knowing it isn’t enough to pull him away from it. He watches the sun come up golden and how it starts to warm the cream of the painted walls into a soft yellow. He kisses Elrohir’s temple. 

The smell of tobacco drifts into the room. Elrond sighs. It always gives him a headache and makes him feel a bit ill. Legolas comes in, nose wrinkled up. 

‘Estel!’ Elladan calls. ‘Outside!’

Legolas climbs into the bed next to Elrond. Even though there’s a whole bed shoved up close to the bed, they’re all trying to fit into one together. Elrond doesn’t have enough arms for all of them. He drags Elladan a bit closer so he can loop his arm around both of the twins at the same time and holds Legolas securely with his other arm so that he doesn’t fall off the bed where he’s perched himself. 

‘I’m sad,’ Legolas says. 

Still the smell of the smoke is getting stronger. 

‘Estel,’ Elrond calls. ‘At the least, smoke out the window.’ He hears a window shove open in the other room. 

‘Have to make house rules,’ Legolas mutters. He traces his finger through Elrond’s hair.

‘So pretty.’ 

Elrond gives him a soft smile. He watches the sunlight creep further along the wall. He should have slept. He’s tired. He pushes himself too far, and he knows it, but he keeps doing it.

And now he’s exhausted, and the day is here, and he can feel Sauron, though he doesn’t feel close. But he’s here, and Frodo can feel it too. If Elrond concentrates, he can feel Frodo. He’ll talk to Gandalf about it. He can feel his soul in Frodo, the part that he gave Frodo to replace the part of Frodo’s soul that the Nazgûl stole with their haunted blade. 

Elrohir stirs suddenly. 

‘I’m gonna make breakfast.’ He climbs over Elladan silently and pulls on his clothes. Legolas kisses Elrond’s cheek and then slips away and goes down with Elrohir. Elladan kisses Elrond’s hand and then also dresses and follows the others. 

Elrond lies awake, staring at the wall. The yellow of it becomes paler and then it is white against the cream. He forces himself up and opens the window. The air comes in cool and smelling of leaves. Elrond presses his hand to the pane and watches it fog around the warmth of his hand. He draws his hand pack, leaving a print on the window that disappear again. 

When he was a child, he was attacked by the Sons of Fëanor and stolen by them from his people, his people running already from wars and death. And his parents left him to save the world, and they came back with an army that saved everyone from slavery, but that sunk a continent. It was all so sudden, so much, and it happened in a span of a few decades over his childhood and young adulthood, but it remains so long in his memories. And now that world that they saved, and that he bound himself to, for hope, for to help – now that world is lost to him, and he will never know what happened. 

But Sauron is here, so he must not be there, and that is good, for the people that remained Denethor of Gondor, Celeborn of Lórien, Thranduil of Mirkwood, and the hobbits, the dwarves, the Dúnedain, and all other peoples who wished to remain free, would be able to fight off whatever armies Sauron had left behind, if he was not leading them. And there would come peace. There would be. If that were another world. 

‘You’re thinking so hard, darling,’ Galadriel says behind him.

Elrond turns. 

‘I’m trying to learn where we are,’ he says.

‘I know. So is Mithrandir.’ 

‘Well, he can read,’ Elrond says. ‘I need to teach myself this language.’ 

‘Yes,’ Galadriel says. She sits on the bed, still unmade, beside the other bed, also unmade. 

‘Your children grow jealous?’ 

‘Of?’ Elrond says. He doesn’t want to have some sort of banter with her. He doesn’t want her to call him darling and baby and make jokes about his children’s affections. 

‘You? Each other?’ 

Elrond does not reply. 

‘Frodo thought we were better than we are,’ Galadriel continues, like this is supposed to be something he can understand without any context. ‘I heard him talking to Merry. He can’t believe we jumped to using the Ring.’ 

Elrond does not reply. He hardly believes it either, but it made more sense than anything when he was standing with the news sinking like an island over him, crushing him beneath the weight of seven seas. 

Take the Ring. Use the Ring. Create an empire that may be overthrown later. If Sauron takes the world now, it will never be undone. 

‘Frodo isn’t a historian,’ Elrond says. ‘Or master of lore.’ 

‘But you are.’ 

‘Are you really going to play this game with me when it’s what you wanted?’ Elrond says. ‘What you always wanted. That’s why you left Valinor and came to Middle-earth. For power and glory. For realms. To rule.’ 

Galadriel studies him. 

‘If we hadn’t left, you would never have been born.’ 

‘I wouldn’t have been born if a lot of terrible things hadn’t happened,’ Elrond replies. ‘And neither would have been… your daughter, our children, Frodo, Legolas, a lot of people. It would be a different world. What does it matter. Are you going to pin this on me? Frodo’s fear?’ 

‘It was your idea.’ 

‘You agreed.’ 

‘It was your idea.’ 

Elrond sighs. 

‘And we dropped it,’ he says, because he knows where this conversation is going. She wants It back. She held it, and she wants It. She’s going to bribe him with his sadness, but he knows her too well. 

‘Mother,’ he says. She sits up straighter. Her hair is bound back in many braids. Her eyes gleam with the brightness of the dead trees that once gave Valinor light before the Noldor fled. She doesn’t always like it when he calls her Mother, and they both know that. They both know what she’s getting at, and they both know that he’s going to try to push it aside without talking about it. Even so, he doesn’t address it straight. 

‘I don’t feel the sea’s pull,’ he says clearly. 

Galadriel’s chest rises and falls with a deep breath that she makes no other sound or show of. She must be holding it in and letting it out very quietly. So she’s angry. 

‘Do you?’ he asks, even though she’s angry. ‘You’d know more than me, since it was your home, Emë.’ 

He never calls her Emë, the Telerian children’s name that she called her mother, and Celebrían later called her, and then Celebrían’s children called her after. 

‘I think I know what your secrets are,’ she says instead of answering. ‘The ones you didn’t want me to see, if I took the Ring and took you beneath my power.’ 

‘What are they then?’ Elrond stares into her eyes. 

‘I wouldn’t say them out loud.’ 

‘Are they that terrible?’ 

‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘You aren’t an Elf.’ 

‘I never said I was.’ 

‘You did when you chose.’ 

‘I chose what people I was counted with, not what I was. I could never choose what I was.’ 

‘But you could choose that much. No one else gets to choose, just your blessed family.’ 

‘What are my sins?’ 

‘I won’t say them out loud.’ 

‘You don’t know what they are.’ 

‘They’re greater than mine.’ 

‘Are anyone’s?’ 

Galadriel scoffs. 

‘Maglor’s.’ 

‘Are they?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘How.’ 

‘I never killed my people.’ 

‘Neither did I. And I never hid away never helping anyone.’ 

‘Does that make you better than me, Elrond?’ 

‘It makes me stronger.’ 

‘What did you not want me to see.’ Galadriel stands. 

‘So you don’t know.’ 

‘I have guesses.’ 

‘They might be wrong.’ 

‘Elrond, what have you done?’ 

‘Nothing,’ Elrond says. There’s something in her eyes now that is fear. He watches it grow, but he says nothing. He isn’t certain what she thinks his secrets are. He has many, not all of them are his. Some are his children’s. He holds his breath as she watches him.

‘Elrond,’ she says.

‘Yes?’ 

‘Tell me.’ 

‘Tell you what?’ Now he’s lost her train of thought. There’s a desperation to her voice that frightens him. He touches the windowsill behind him. Gandalf is in the attic. He might be listening. Estel is in the other room. He is listening. 

‘I never hurt your daughter,’ he says. ‘If that’s what you think.’ And he hates that her eyes flicker with relief and she stops standing quite so tall. Her breath comes out in a soft sigh. 

‘Is that what you think of me?’ Elrond asks.

‘You made me wonder.’ 

‘Wonder what?’ 

Galadriel touches the tightness of her braids. 

‘I don’t know.’ 

People get irrational about their children.

Elrond traces the wood of the windowsill. It is damp from the mist, even as the mist has almost lifted. 

‘You loved her,’ Galadriel says. 

Elrond looks down. The loved is like a mill stone tied about his neck. He is drowning in the sea. Loved. Loved. Loved. 

She does not feel the sea pull either. He looks at her, but she has turned away from him. The sun reaches for her, but she stays away from it, head bent, in the shadows of the room. It is a long morning. It was a longer night. 

‘Fuck you, Elrond,’ she says. 

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. 

‘I don’t feel it,’ she says. ‘We’re alone.’


	17. a lot of men died

Mairon sits by a dark pool, staring at his reflection in the water. He looks like a god. He looks like an angel. He is a terrible vision flashing with a face that cannot stay one way and a body that turns like the clouds wheeling through the sky.

When they say that an unholy being cannot assume a form of beauty any longer, what they mean is that all beings of great power by their very nature have a form repellent to the Children of Ilúvatar. Anyone who knows that, knows it.

If he is seen, he is met with fear. He is fear in physical form. He’s a fucking nightmare. He lifts his fingers to his face, and his face changes as he lifts his hand.

It hurt Melian, he remembers. Melian, Lúthien’s mother, Melian, her power carried on now through Elrond and his brother Elros’s long line of death. It hurt to keep her self together, in one form. And when her love died, Melian couldn’t hold herself together anymore.

Mairon closes his many eyes. Maybe this is why he cannot assume a form of deception. Maybe he has no more love in him. No love, once loved, forever lost.

He stares down at his bare fingers. His hands are skeletal, with a thin membrane like a bat’s stretched over them. Lúthien could pull on the skin of a vampire. She could set up her lover as a werewolf. Melian caught people in a girdle that drove them insane. Melian was Galadriel’s teacher. Elrond’s fore-mother. The entire family uses black magic.

He scoffs, and his fingers turn white. They are empty. Did he put all his love into the Ring? Did he lose all of it somewhere?

‘Mairon, Mairon,’ a voice says from the past. ‘My precious.’

But it is just a memory. What is real is the earth beneath his knees and the clouds that spin through the sky. He plunges his hands into the water. His body will not stay still, stay put, so he will take another one. He stands, and his wings unfold. And in the air, beneath a distant sun, he flies.

* * *

Maglor lies on a rock covered with moss and watches the clouds change shape between the branches of the trees. His hair is wet, but his skin has dried already. It is the afternoon. The hobbits aren’t far off. Estel is close to them. Maglor has it mapped out in his head, but he doesn’t see them. He doesn’t move. They probably won’t see him even if they look at him. Sometimes he becomes transparent. He’s fading. He’s been fading for centuries. His soul is desperate to leave his body, to leave the pain of it.

His damp hair lies heavy on his shoulder. He will cut it soon. Ask Elrond for a knife or for scissors. Elrond might cut it himself. Elrond is sweet like that. Sweet like he would forgive his kidnapper because he was sorry enough for the deaths. Maglor hates that he can’t count the number of people he has killed.

Sometimes Elrond calls him father. Sometimes he calls him Maglor. Sometimes he calls him Kano, and it makes Maglor start each time.

Kano, his nickname, from so long ago that time does not remember it, and he barely does. But it was what Maedhros called him sometimes when they were with the children, Elrond and his brother, waiting for the end of another night that wasn’t promised to end in anything but death.

There have been many wars. They blur together in his head if he thinks about them all at once. Doesn’t Elrond know better than to forgive? Morgoth was forgiven, and he turned to evil. Sauron too. But still Elrond looks at the deeds of history, the betrayals, and holds his brother’s son, sixty-four times removed, give or take, and calls him Hope because for some reason he still has it.

Maglor watches Pippin gather mushrooms. Pippin doesn’t see him. Pippin’s hair catches golden-auburn in the sunlight. It’s almost too close to red, for a moment.

Maglor looks at the clouds again. He watches the trees as they bend towards him and then away. The blackberry vines rise high into the air, growing up along the trees. They are thorned.

He wants to move somewhere. He isn’t used to being still. He leaves everywhere, always, and goes on, lamenting. And is that grief enough to ask for forgiveness? He is a murderer. He’s had blood on his hands. He held Elrond for the first time with blood on his hands, and he brushed back his hair, and the blood smeared on Elrond’s cheek, but it was fine, because Elrond already had blood drying on his face.

And Maglor would do anything to take it all back. If he could go back to before, before they flew from the Undying Lands for revenge against Morgoth, he would cut his own throat, throw himself from a tower, drown himself in the silver sea.

Elrond knows it. Elrond forgives him. Elrond forgave him long before that. He’s a lore master. Doesn’t he read the histories?

Maglor thinks that he might leave now. He might. He might get up and dress in Elrond’s clothes and walk away until he was back by the sea and follow it along the shores, singing of pain, singing of regret, searching for the cursed blessed stone that he threw into the waves.

But it wouldn’t be here, would it?

Gandalf talks a lot of dimensions now. He talks of different worlds connected by power, none of it steady. It’s confusing. It’s bleary. It’s a bunch of words he doesn’t know that Gandalf is trying to translate into terms for them to understand.

That time is not linear. (Elrond always said so.) That there are worlds that you might not see, that there are others you might get glimpses at, might even walk into. But all of it is dimensions and entanglement and black holes ripping through the fabric of space, and those sound too much like the Void.

So now he’s come out to swim stare at the clouds so that Erestor won’t break down on the other side of the kitchen table because something something he was there at Sirion when the Sons of Fëanor came. And it’s sad, it’s terribly sad, but so is most of history, so can’t he get over it?

And Maglor’s just thinking that because he’s sick of remembering that day with the torches in the sunlight and how the dead fell around them until Elwing raised them up with black magic Maglor had only heard tales of and turned them against the Fëanorians’ army.

He’d thought then that they might lose, because you had to dismember and burn the corpses if you wanted them to stop, because she would use even a hand. And some part of him had wanted to die in the battle because in death he might be forgiven. But Elwing was only one person. And she was only partly a god. So she grew weak, and the bodies fell. And she had such a fury in her eyes that he thought she would burn to ashes like his father had done. And maybe that’s why she jumped to the sea. Maybe she would have gone up in flames. Instead she chose water. She chose to drown. And she wasn’t drowned, for even then the gods had mercy on one of their own.

It’s all so complicated when he thinks about it. It’s such a fairy tale. She turned into an albatross. It’s strange the way the world goes.

Maglor sits up and pulls his clothes on. Pippin notices him for the first time, but he doesn’t run. He stares at Maglor, and Maglor nods at him. Pippin gives a little smile, and Maglor can’t answer it. Just smile. His lips tremble. He looks down at his hand. He sees the rock through it.


	18. my river, running

Elladan wakes hot and then cold. Elrond is bent over him, face cut in half by shadow and moonlight.

‘Elladan.’

‘I dreamt of her again,’ Elladan says. Elrond knows. He pulls Elladan into his arms.

Elladan is cold with sweat. He stares out the window at the trees in the night. For a moment, he think he sees his mother’s face, but it is only his reflection in the window.

‘Fuck,’ he whispers, trembling. Elrond brushes his hair back.

 _I always see her on that table,_ Elladan says. Elrond lifts him up like he doesn’t weigh a thing and carries him into the bathroom. Elladan leans against him when he sets him down. He can’t stand on his own for the time. If he tries, he’ll fall to the floor and lie there – he doesn’t know for how long. Moving feels heavy. He’s trying to press the image out of his mind, but it comes back again.

_She looked dead. She wasn’t moving. She didn’t even cry out in pain when the orcs touched her. But the orcs tried to kill her as soon as they saw him. And that was the only lasting mark they made on her skin._

_He can still see the blood falling down her breast. How it dripped. How he thought they had really killed her._

‘Ella.’ Elrond squeezes his hand tightly enough that Elladan snaps back to the present. He can tell that Elrond is talking to Elrohir and Arwen, but he can’t focus on it. It’s fast and all mental. Elrohir comes in with medicine, and Elladan takes it.

He still can’t make out what they are thinking. All he sees is his mother’s tangled hair.

Elladan is glad for the warmth of the shower. Elrond holds him up so that he doesn’t collapse. His vision clears slowly. He makes out the falling water, his own skin. His father’s skin. His hair. The porcelain of the iron tub.

The water falls from a shower head. The shower curtain is closed. It’s a shower kit attached to the ceiling, unsteady. It’s an old house, Gandalf says. But he means a hundred and a half years, and that doesn’t feel old at all.

But five hundred years feels like forever ago and also now. He focuses on not vomiting. He needs to keep the medicine down. It will calm him. His heart is too fast. He’s going to fall, and he does, but Elrond is holding him, so he falls against him, and it doesn’t hurt.

The light looks wrong. The shadows are wrong too. Elrond shuts off the water. He hands Elladan to Elrohir. Elrohir takes him. He dries him. Elladan tries to pull himself together. He tries to say something. He tries to hear what they’re saying. It’s all rushing though, sounds and thoughts and images that he cannot catch. He wants to run out, but he has nowhere to run to. There is nowhere to go, and no revenge to fill the screaming void in his soul.

Look what they’ve done to her. It is evil. Look what they do. It is evil. What have you seen? Too much. He will never be rid of it.

Elrond carries Elladan back to bed. The sheets are dry, have been changed. Estel and Arwen stand together, talking. He cannot hear them. He lets his father hold him. His hair is damp. Elrond pulls it up over the pillow so that it doesn’t touch his skin.

‘You’ll sleep soon, my son,’ he says, and Elladan does and dreams of nothing.

* * *

Elladan wakes in Elrond’s arms. The sun looks wrong, and it takes him a few moments to remember that they’re in another world, and that this is not the sun that he is used to. It is less golden, paler – further away, maybe. He watches the sunlight on the wall and reaches for his brother’s mind.

Elrohir is cooking. Butter slides over the blackness of an iron pan, turning it a darker black as it melts and the yellow of it disappears entirely.

‘Ro is making pancakes,’ he whispers. Elrond kisses him.

‘You’re still tired,’ Elrond says. He strokes back Elladan’s hair. It’s dried tangled. Elladan freezes. They had to cut Celebrían’s hair. He sees it again, how dark her dried blood was. He’s going down again. It’s been five hundred years, why can’t he pull himself out of it faster? This falling apart. When does it stop? But if he looks at Elrond, the answer is never.

He searches Elrond’s eyes. Elrond holds him, and somehow that’s keeping him together. He feels the strength of Elrond’s soul enveloping him. He is aware, vaguely, that most people will never feel this. This bit of melancholy of being alive but stretched between death and immortality, grasping onto his father’s soul to stay alive. He will die if they are parted. He does not know how fast the death will come.

Elrond knew. Celebrían knew. They had children knowing the terms of their lives, and that is why Elrond asks him sometimes if he is angry. He isn’t. It is aching, but he chose for it to hurt more, going with the Dúnedain when no one had asked him to, loving those who would die, knowing full well they would. Sometimes he thinks that death would be the easier choice. At least now, when his soul is worn thin and frayed.

Elrond does not have many answers for him beyond that he knew the terms of their lives before he had children. That it was told to him at his choice. He does not know what would happen if he were killed. He was not told that. If I die, leave, he would say. That was how it would have been. Celebrían would take them and leave. And then Celebrían left alone, and they all stayed behind, and he cannot answer why beyond that he felt he must to protect the world. That is what Elrond would say too. And some people call it cruel. So it means to rule. So it means to hold power. So it means to be a protector. So it means to choose a pain so others may not know it. So it is cruel to yourself, in the end.

Elladan dresses and lets his father brush his hair. Elrond braids it. By the time the final braid is bound, Elladan has pulled himself together. For now he stands strong again.

The face he sees in the mirror is grim, and too much his mother’s, but there is no fear in his eyes.


	19. like ages spent

Boromir follows Aragorn into the barn. Saruman looks up when they enter. 

‘This is surprising,’ he says. 

‘Elrond can’t make it today,’ Aragorn says. He drops beside Saruman. Boromir sits down further away. He doesn’t know why he asked to come. He just did. He hasn’t seen Saruman for so long he was starting to think he’d imagined him. Maybe that’s why he wanted to come. Or maybe he thinks Saruman will attack Aragorn and there’s something he could do to stop him from being killed – like he could take on a wizard. That together they might have a chance. He knows it’s stupid. He came anyway. 

Aragorn feeds Saruman porridge. His hands are steady. Boromir doesn’t know him well enough to read his face. It’s set. 

‘So,’ Aragorn says. ‘You do need to eat, even you. Isn’t that a misfortune?’ 

Saruman stares at him. There are still black streaks in his hair – it hasn’t all turned white yet. Elrond says his hair was raven black when he first came from over the Sea. That he looked young. But that was long ago. 

‘And you age,’ Aragorn muses. So he was thinking the same thing. ‘Then will you die?’

‘I suppose.’ Saruman does not look at him. He stares at the porridge. 

‘I have so many questions,’ Aragorn says. 

‘And what makes you think I have the answers?’ Saruman says. Or that I’d give them to you, seems to ring through the air, though Saruman’s lips do not move. 

Boromir stares down at his hands. They are scarred so many times over that he doesn’t know what the natural lines of his palms are – not all of them anyway. He knows the main ones, but the others – some are scars. Could a palmist read his hand? Or would they just say you are worn and tired, a soldier who was prepared to die a death that is no longer standing before him. He feels heavy, heavier than he has felt in a long time, like the ground is not strong enough to hold him and he might fall through the earth and be lost forever. 

‘I am thirsty,’ Saruman says. Aragorn gives him water. The water escapes the rim of the cup and runs down Saruman’s white beard. Aragorn sets the cup down. ‘My wrists hurt,’ Saruman says.

‘That’s too bad.’ Aragorn feeds him another spoonful of porridge. Boromir watches the old hay at his feet. It is moulded, decaying. The whole barn smells of dirt and mould. It will all fail and rot away someday. 

Gondor is dead. It has to be dead. If it is not, it is unreachable. And that is dead for what else is death? Pippin cried in the night that his mother thought him dead. Boromir heard him. He heard Frodo and Merry’s attempts at comfort. But Pippin is right. Everyone will think them dead. 

‘There, you’ve eaten,’ Aragorn say. ‘Now tell me what you know.’

Boromir listens to what Saruman knows. Or what he says he knows. It’s not much. It’s nothing at all. 

‘You’re lying,’ Aragorn says. ‘You know more than that.’ 

Boromir doesn’t want to thick of time as a dimension. He doesn’t want to think of time as a veil that is twisted like a used handkerchief, touching in places, becoming thin enough to pull oneself through if you press hard enough. 

He doesn’t want to think of other worlds or other dimensions that are not the world he is used to. He doesn’t want to imagine other worlds that sometimes touch and let you into them. That his world was just one and is gone from him now but still there, suffering, dying, without him. 

He wants to fall into the earth and find himself in a forest near Gondor and pick up a sword and make his way back and live and die for his people. That’s what he was meant to do, what he was prepared to do. And maybe that is part of a tragedy, but maybe the world is a tragedy, and every part of it makes up one long suffering. These are seeds of doubt. They sprouted long ago when his mother died. 

‘I don’t know more,’ Saruman says. ‘Just that if you stare long enough at the stars, you can fall through the universe. What do you want me to say? This is all I know. There is nothing more to tell you. Tell Elrond I wish to speak to him.’ 

Aragorn stands. 

‘He knows.’ 

The sunlight feels too warm when they step out from the shadows of the barn. Boromir shields his face, blinking up at the sky. Everything looks just a bit wrong. The colours are wrong. He blinks again, but the colours will not change. They have not. 

‘They’re never going to look right,’ Boromir says. Aragorn turns to him. Still Boromir cannot read his face. ‘The colours,’ Boromir says. ‘They’re… wrong.’ 

‘Yeah.’ Aragorn touches Boromir’s hand. He squeezes it. Boromir does not respond. He doesn’t know what he is supposed to say. 

‘I will go back to Gondor,’ he says, without thinking. ‘Or I will die trying.’ 

Aragorn stares ahead of them at the house, the woods behind it. He is silent, but his brow is furrowed. He sucks his cheeks in, which makes him look more haggard than normal. 

Boromir slides his hands into his pockets. He waits for Aragorn to speak. Aragorn lets his cheeks go and takes a breath in through his teeth. He lets it out, shakes his head. 

‘If you think you can find a way.’

‘Can’t Maglor?’ 

‘No. But maybe he could pull up an empty place again, and we can toss the Ring into it and let it stay there.’ 

Boromir lets a laugh out. ‘Why didn’t we just do that?’ 

‘Because… it’s still a risk. It’s not inanimate. It has a will. It could make its way back, maybe, even if it takes years.’ 

‘Everything takes years,’ Boromir says. ‘Centuries. And then we die, and we don’t get to see how it turns out.’ 

Aragorn swallows. ‘I guess.’ 

‘What…’ Boromir wants to ask him what it was to be raised by immortal beings, surrounded by elves who had lived for thousands of years and would not age or die, but that would be a cruel thing to ask, and he doesn’t know Aragorn well enough to ask it, even if they were both drunk enough that it wouldn’t hurt so much. And they’re both perfectly sober, and it’s the morning, and they don’t have anything to drink either. They’ve started on brewing beer, but none of it is ready yet. 

Legolas comes outside. His hair is too golden. Hair isn’t supposed to be that dark golden. Legolas doesn’t seem to notice he’s staring at him. Aragorn has made a comment now and again that Legolas is used to being around mortals. He visited Lake Town enough or something. Legolas stops beside them. 

‘What are we doing today?’ 

Aragorn holds up one finger, motioning for him to wait, and runs into the house with the dirty dishes. Legolas smiles at Boromir a bit shyly. 

‘Good morning.’ 

‘Good morning.’ Boromir nods his head quickly. He’s spent time with Legolas, but he still never knows what to say when they’re alone. Legolas doesn’t seem to either. But he does make an effort to include Boromir and goes out of his way to talk to him. Boromir supposes he appreciates it, since it doesn’t feel much like pity. 

Legolas shifts his weight from one foot to the other. His hair brushes over his face. He pushes it back. Boromir thinks this is the first time he’s seen it unbraided. 

‘Your hair is really pretty,’ he says.

Legolas’s face lights up. ‘Thank you! Your hair is beautiful too! You keep it nice, not like Aragorn.’ 

Boromir smiles at him. He doesn’t comment though since he doesn’t want Aragorn coming up on him insulting his hair or appearance. Aragorn comes back out with Gimli. Legolas glances at Gimli. Gimli looks back and then away. 

‘Do we have work to do?’ Boromir asks. 

‘No, I think we should do something fun today,’ Aragorn says. ‘Like a picnic or something, you know? Take the hobbits out on a walk.’ He blinks. ‘That didn’t sound exactly how I meant. 

‘Maybe we can go to the beach?’ Legolas asks. 

‘Mmm, not the beach.’ Aragorn runs his hand through his hair. ‘But maybe there’s somewhere to hike up to? See a bit of an overlook?’ 

‘There is to the west,’ Legolas says. ‘Just past he lake. I run there often.’ 

‘Good. Great plan,’ Aragorn says. ‘Let’s gather food and see who’s coming.’


	20. and sunlight plays

Legolas stares down at the lake below him. The wind feels cold, even though the sun is bright, and it is almost too warm when the wind stops. It’s a shift constantly between too unpleasant extremes, or maybe he just can’t be comfortable. 

A picnic seemed like a good idea, and it seems to have cheered most of them – especially the hobbits – but it feels too close to home for Legolas, and he doesn’t know any of them well, so he feels even more lonely than when he runs in the woods alone. 

Bilbo and Glóin stayed with the elves and the half-elves, but everyone else went. Well, not Saruman. Saruman is still prisoner in the barn. Gandalf’s talking to Aragorn, and Boromir is talking to Merry and Pippin while Gimli talks to Frodo and Sam. Legolas wishes he had stayed with the other elves.

He hugs his knees and watches the wind make the lake ripple. Even from here he can see the sunken trees in the water. He’s sitting a bit away from the others because they’re smoking their precious pipeweed from home. And honestly Legolas hates it, but he’s not going to tell them that because they’re savouring it.

Maybe he’ll go home before them. He should get to know Glorfindel and Erestor better. They’re going to all live forever though so is there really a rush? 

‘Green leaf,’ Aragorn calls in the common tongue. ‘Are you over there sulking?’ 

‘No!’ Legolas calls back. He isn’t sure why Aragorn switches his name so often. It might be a joke. The only answer he ever got was ‘suits you.’ 

Elladan had a breakdown. That’s why Aragorn wanted everyone out of the house doing something ‘fun.’ Legolas wonders if he should check on him. He feels useless out here. And Gandalf and Aragorn are keeping everyone suitably guarded. 

He stands. ‘I’m going back.’ 

‘Knew you were sulking,’ Aragorn says. 

Legolas shrugs. ‘Got cold.’

Aragorn raises an eyebrow. Aragorn knows the cold doesn’t bother him, but it’s bothering him now, and he can’t get rid of the discomfort. It’s more emotional than physical, but it’s still something agitating him. He needs to do something, not just sit and try to follow along with the conversations. The hobbits have thick accents that he isn’t used to, and they’re the ones doing most of the talking. 

‘The smoke’s bothering him,’ Merry says. ‘We’re almost out though.’ 

Legolas nods. He shifts his weight. Now he might look rude for leaving. He suggested this. But it’s too much like home. 

Aragorn passes his pipe to Gandalf. ‘You can finish that.’ He pats the grass near him. ‘Come, sit down.’ 

Legolas sits down beside him. Aragorn puts an arm around him. 

‘We were being rude,’ he says. 

‘Mmm.’ Legolas shrugs and runs his hands over the clover. The wind is too cold and the sun too hot. It takes him a few more minutes to realise that it is because the wind is coming in off the sea, and he isn’t used to those extremes set against each other, so they feel wrong together, even if they aren’t too much on their own. He braids and unbraids a bit of his hair, then braids it again. 

Legolas had really hoped to go down to the sea. He’s gone, of course. He couldn’t not go. It was the first time he saw the sea, and it was wide and greener than he’d expected, the waves rolling green water to the rocky shore where only patches of dark sand stood. 

He’d stood and stared for a long time, waiting for his heart to be pierced with a longing that never came. The air was salty enough that he could taste it as he breathed it in, and the gulls wailed above him, and it was like in all the stories, but there wasn’t a part of him that wanted to drop everything and find a way over it. He had hoped there would be. He had hoped there would be somewhere to run to after Aragorn died. 

He’s gone many times since that first time: in the sun, in the dark, in the wind, in the rain. And never has it sprung onto him a longing to leave and pursue a path on the rolling water. He’s watched the boats come and go. He has stood and watched the tide roll in until he was standing to his shoulders in the water, but nothing has struck through his heart, and he hates that it hasn’t. 

It was supposed to be something inescapable, like falling in love, but maybe he can’t do either. Though Elladan and Elrohir have gone with him and said that it doesn’t feel the same; it doesn’t feel right. And the sun looks too far, and the stars aren’t bright enough, and the water that rolls green and bright feels just like water and not like a prison asking them to gratefully cast themselves upon it. 

They’re very dramatic – Elrond’s sons. But of course they are. Their father is a poet, and they’ve picked it up from him. Legolas is dramatic too, so he shouldn’t complain, and he isn’t really complaining, just observing. 

Aragorn is also dramatic and poetic, and you can tell that Elrond raised him. You can tell he’s spent too long in the wild and seen too many dark things. All of them rush out of him sometimes in a flash in his eyes, a quiver in his voice. It’s the same with Elrond, with his children. 

Legolas was raised in the shadow of Dol Guldur, and it’s crept into his heart in some ways, but he’s always had comforts brought to him when he lost someone. And he’s never lost a parent the way that they have. He can’t imagine what it would do to him to see one of his parents tortured to the point of needing an escape from the very world. It would break something inside of him. It was bad enough seeing the broken light in Thranduil’s eyes, hear the way that his voice caught. See him go from laughing and merry to quiet and drawn away. And he was always kind to others, but not always to himself. 

And Aragorn’s lost his mother. And he doesn’t remember his birth father. Elrond he still has, but he doesn’t spend much time at home, and that home wasn’t going to be a permanent home to him in the end. And it’s all very tragic. 

‘What are you thinking about so hard?’ Aragorn asks. He pulls gently on Legolas’s hair in that teasing way that he does, and his voice is light in the way that means: ‘I know you’re upset but let me distract you. I’ll make you forget it for awhile if you want. Name something and I’ll make a joke of it, no matter how dark. I know how to do that. It’s the only way to survive.’

‘Just...’ Legolas says, and he can’t think of anything to say, because he doesn’t want to get into that in front of the mortals, because they’re going to die. All of them. Well, maybe not Frodo. And that’s another level of tragic because he expected to die, and he won’t be able to, maybe. And Legolas doesn’t know if he knows that. ‘I don’t know.’ 

‘I’m trying to figure out how they can eat that much,’ Aragorn says. He waves at the hobbits. ‘Defeating the laws of physics there.’ 

‘Pretty sure we’re not,’ Merry says. He grins a cheeky little grin. He looks like he would take on all the laws of physics if he found them standing between him and something he wanted. 

Aragorn shoves him gently on the shoulder. He doesn’t knock him down. He can be so gentle sometimes, even in his teasing, his shoving. Legolas looks through the clover. 

‘Legolas always finds four leaf clovers,’ Aragorn says. ‘Always.’ 

Legolas smiles at him as he pulls one up after just seconds of searching.

‘Pretty sure it’s magic.’ Aragorn’s eyes shine. 

‘Yeah, I’m making them on the spot,’ Legolas says. He twists the clover stem between his fingers. It smells sweet. He eats it. It tastes the same as the ones at home. And that’s such a sweet relief. 

‘Ate your luck,’ Gimli says.

‘Well, of course, that’s how you keep it inside of you.’ Pippin waves his hand in the air. 

‘Very good point, Pip.’ Merry nods. ‘No one can take your luck if you eat it.’

‘If you find another one, can I eat it?’ Pippin asks. 

Legolas nods. He shifts through the clover again. 

Merry lies on his back. ‘So that cloud totally looks like a dragon. Ever seen a dragon, Strider?’ 

‘Yeah, actually,’ Aragorn says. ‘Not a very big one though.’ 

‘Was it a very small dragon?’ Pippin asks. ‘Or just not a very big one?’ 

‘Kind of small,’ Aragorn says. ‘Not very small. Ten feet long? There are dragons like six inches.’ 

‘No way!’ Merry sits up suddenly. ‘Baby dragons?’ 

‘No, miniature dragons,’ Aragorn says.

‘Like little lizards?’ Sam asks. 

‘Yeah, like little lizards with wings who breathe fire.’ 

‘That sounds really cute, actually,’ Pippin says. ‘I want a little dragon.’ 

‘You are such a Took,’ Sam says. He frowns. ‘I mean—‘ 

‘Oh, I know what you mean,’ Pippin says. ‘That I’m dazzling and full of adventure and bravery.’ 

Sam’s frown deepens. It does not look like that’s exactly what he meant at all. 

‘Just say it,’ Pippin says. ‘You think I’m foolhardy.’ 

‘Well…’ Sam starts. ‘A bit rash, all right.’ 

‘Thank you.’ Pippin flashes him a smile. ‘That just means I’m not boring.’ 

‘Please don’t call Sam boring,’ Frodo says. 

‘Gonna call him a bit boring.’ 

‘What did he ever do to you?’ 

‘You just saw!’ 

‘But you took it as a compliment.’ 

‘Well, I’m sure he didn’t mean it as a compliment.’ 

‘Just…’ Sam says. ‘Well, where would you keep your little dragon? Wouldn’t it burn down the house?’ 

‘I’d keep it in a little iron dragon-house,’ Pippin says. ‘For dragons. And I’d name him… Fire King.’ 

‘Fire King?’ Frodo raises an eyebrow. 

‘Fire King of the Tooks. And then I’d sic ‘im on annoying visitors.’ 

‘Do I get counted as an annoying visitor?’ Frodo asks. 

‘No,’ Pippin says. ‘But Merry does!’ 

‘What have I ever done to you except showed you kindness and attention far beyond what you ever deserved?’ Merry shoves Pippin down onto the grass. 

‘Complained about me behind my back to Frodo!’ Pippin shoves up off the ground. ‘Often and loudly! Don’t think I didn’t hear.’ 

‘Maybe we shouldn’t wrestle so close to the edge,’ Boromir says suddenly. He’s put himself between the edge of the overlook and Merry and Pippin. 

‘Good idea,’ Aragorn says. ‘I don’t really want to carry one of you home dead or injured.’ 

‘Would you carry us one home whole and alive?’ Pippin asks. 

‘Absolutely not. This is all about avoiding carrying hobbits.’ 

Pippin laughs. ‘But surely we don’t weigh a thing to you?’ 

‘No, you don’t,’ Aragorn agrees. ‘But this is about my pride. I don’t want to be just hobbit transportation.’ 

‘I think it would suit you,’ Pippin says. 

Merry laughs. ‘Hobbit cart.’ 

‘Please, no,’ Aragorn says. ‘I have enough names.’ 

‘He does have a lot of names,’ Gandalf puts in. ‘Could add a few more.’ 

‘I’d rather have Fire King,’ Aragorn says. 

‘No, I’m saving that for my dragon!’ Pippin crosses his arms. 

‘Where are you getting a dragon?’ Aragorn asks. 

‘Never you mind.’

‘Dear god,’ Merry says. ‘He has a plan.’

‘I always have a plan. For anything. Even finding dragons.’ 

‘So what’s your plan for destroying the ring?’ Merry asks. 

‘Find a really big volcano and chuck that bastard in.’ 

‘How big?’ 

‘Really big. Biggest volcano here. Ha. Told you I had a plan for everything.’ Pippin’s eyes sparkle. 

‘What’s your plan for not being stabbed to death for being annoying?’ Merry asks. 

‘That’s top secret,’ Pippin says. ‘And of course I’d never tell you.’ 

‘I thought hobbits were a peaceful people,’ Gimli says. 

‘Oh, not the Tooks and Brandybucks, I’m afraid,’ Merry says. ‘And you’ve got yourself mixed up with a bunch of them. Really a dreadful situation to be in.’ 

Gimli smiles. His cheeks get all round when he smiles, and the skin around his eyes crinkles all up, and his eyes laugh along with him.

‘Absolutely horrid,’ Aragorn agrees. He puts his hand on Gimli’s shoulder. ‘I’ll take care of you though.’ 

‘Don’t need looking after,’ Gimli says. 

Aragorn shakes his head. ‘Everyone does.’


	21. at least this

The wind grows colder as the day wears on. Aragorn watches the leaves as they move beneath it, first pressed down and then pressed up, shifting to different shades of green in the light, playing tricks on his eyes of shadows and movement that spring into enemies and then disappear again when he looks straight at them.

He feels like he’s watching children. He always feels that way around the Hobbits. They’re naive and innocent in a way that he doesn’t quite have a word for. Sheltered, maybe. And he’s the one who has been sheltering them, sheltering the Shire.

So he’s got a thousand cuts so that they might only have one because a thousand cuts would kill them, wouldn’t it? And Gandalf likes them because they’re happy, and they’re happy because his people have been dying for them in the shadows, and he’s overthinking it.

He’s one of those rangers, and he played up the rough act so that no one would mess with him, but people still did. Maybe he’s jaded.

Aragorn rests his back against the trunk of an old apple tree. He wonders if it was planted here or if it managed to find its own way as a seed. He places his hand on the bark.

_‘Do you hear how it’s singing?’ Elladan asks in a memory where he’s only six years old and in Elladan’s arms in the branches of an apple tree white with flowers. It was a cool evening, and the bees weren’t buzzing the way they had been earlier, making the whole tree hum. He listened to the tree, but he only heard Elladan’s voice, light with the song of the tree. Elladan bent to kiss him, and his hair fell over Aragorn (Estel) like a curtain of night. He tickled Aragorn’s stomach and Aragorn laughed where he was tucked safe on the branch, Elladan’s arms and legs guarding him from a fall, his hair guarding him from the world._

That was long ago. Aragorn hears the song of the tree now, and it is deep and full of sorrow. It does not remember how it grew, only that it hurt. It lost a lover. That too was long ago.

Aragorn stretches his legs out in front of him. He bends down until his head is resting on his legs.

‘Glory,’ Merry says. ‘You’re flexible, Strider.’

‘Raised by elves,’ Gandalf puts in.

‘Mm,’ Aragorn murmurs against his legs. Legolas rubs his back gently. Aragorn smiles even though Legolas can’t see his face.

He’s been friends with Legolas for ages, it feels. Ever since he first travelled to Mirkwood and met the prince by the river bank, bare legs covered with mud almost to his hips. And Legolas has been friends with Elrond’s other children since he was born.

Aragorn turns his head to watch Boromir. Boromir has no one. He sits quietly, raven-black hair pushed by the wind. He keeps picking up clover and tossing them over the ledge.

Pippin is regaling him with some tale or other of Bilbo. Pippin lives for attention. Got them all into a spot in Bree. Aragorn watches Boromir’s face. He smiles where he is supposed to smile, but his eyes look distant.

Aragorn breathes slowly. The sun is warm on his back. His vision is cut by his hair in streaks of moving black. He sits up again because he can’t relax, and it isn’t safe to anyway.

‘We should head back,’ he says.

Legolas starts to gather everything together. He’s fast. They start down the hill. It will be easier going back, it’s all downhill.

Underhill. The Smith of last names. Aragorn shakes his head. He grabs one of Legolas’s braids.

‘Ai! Aragorn, that’s not funny!’

Aragorn chuckles. Legolas swats his hand, but not very hard. Aragorn pulls another braid a few moments later. Legolas holds his hand so that he can’t pull his hair. He smiles brightly at Aragorn.

‘Very smart,’ Aragorn says.

‘We thought you all drowned,’ Erestor says when they come through the door.

‘Ha.’ Aragorn pulls off his boots. ‘You really think Legolas could drown?’

‘We decided that he was trying to save you, and you pulled him down,’ Arwen says. She kisses him.

‘Damn. What a way to go.’

‘Very tragic,’ Elrohir agrees. He’s in the kitchen with his hair up making dinner. Elladan stands by his side handing him the ingredients he’s cut up or measured in order of needed.

Legolas goes to help them. Frodo’s gone to Bilbo to tell him how it isn’t a hard walk and how he should come next time. It’s strange how they’re settling. But people adapt to things much faster than they think. Something about wanting to survive. Something about finding a way to laugh even about torture and torment and being dragged across the ground on your face.

But it’s harder to laugh when it’s something done to someone you love.

And Sauron is a master of torture.

Aragorn slides his arms around Elrond’s shoulders from behind and kisses his cheek.

‘Hey, Ada. You all all right?’

Elrond nods. He turns to kiss Aragorn. ‘Thank you, dear.’

‘Yeah.’ Aragorn squeezes Elrond. He’s not sure what to do now. Everything feels a bit empty, and he feels open in a strange way that he hasn’t felt in a long time. Maybe it’s being somewhere he doesn’t know.

He goes up the steep wooden stairs. The house feels smaller upstairs. It’s probably why Glorfindel wanted to sleep downstairs. He’s over seven feet.

Aragorn goes into the long room where he sleeps now. Boromir’s already there, lying on his bed, staring out the window, not moving.

‘You asleep?’ Aragorn says.

‘No.’

Aragorn sits down next to him.

‘It sounds nice in the Shire,’ Boromir says.

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you ever…’ and Boromir pauses, searching for a phrasing that is nicer than ‘resent them for their happiness’ even though they both know that’s what he’s going for.

‘Yeah,’ Aragorn says before Boromir’s found a nicer way to put it. So he doesn’t put it. He just nods. He rests his head on his pillow and stares out the window.

‘It’s quiet sometimes,’ he says. ‘At night. It’s too quiet. I’m not used to it. To… I didn’t like travelling alone.’

‘Why did you?’ Aragorn asks.

Boromir shrugs.

‘Don’t you travel alone?’

‘I’m not the Steward’s son.’

‘Ttttt.’ Boromir shakes his head. Aragorn touches his arm. Boromir doesn’t react to it. He keeps staring out the window.

‘Have you ever wanted to...’ Boromir says, trailing off again, and this time Aragorn can’t guess what he meant to say.

‘Have I wanted to what?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Shove over?’

Boromir moves over, turning onto his back. Aragorn lies down beside him on his side. He studies the regal profile of Boromir’s face.

‘Painters must love you.’

‘What?’ Boromir looks at him.

‘You’d be nice to paint. Or sculpt.’

Boromir lets out a little amused snort. ‘Are you calling me handsome?’

‘I’m calling you a good light study.’

‘You paint?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Gonna paint me?’

‘I don’t think I could do you justice.’

‘You are calling me handsome.’

‘I guess.’ Aragorn quirks a smile at him.

‘Yeah.’ Boromir shakes his head. ‘I’ve never tired to paint.’

‘It’s fun.’

‘It always seemed tedious.’

‘I guess it could be. But anything’s tedious if you don’t like it.’

Boromir shrugs. He rolls onto his side to look at Aragorn. He studies Aragorn’s face, and Aragorn studies his. Boromir looks like he stepped from a history book. He’s beautiful in a way that could be called tragic. Aragorn almost asks him what the worst thing he’s seen is. What’s the worst thing done to him.

He’s been carrying the weight of the world since he was a child, hasn’t he? At least Aragorn got a happy childhood. At least Elrond made sure he got that. The one thing he could give him. (The thing Elrond never got.)

Gandalf is singing in the kitchen. The melody comes up the stairs.


End file.
